I don't have pet peeves like some people. I have whole kennels of irritation.

[On writing to Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple:] I told her I would play a Venetian blind, dirt on the floor, anything.

Taliban-esque: Any behavior that imposes the beliefs of one person on everyone else. Conversations with the Taliban-esque are impossible. They aren't even conversations. With them, it's my way or no way.

Thank you, God, because I am lucky. Also let's face it, it turns out I'm black. And I'm having a career quite different from lots of people, so I feel doubly lucky.

When you hear the ex-politician tell you that the reason they created the War on Drugs was to get black people and to get hippies...that to me is just as shitty as saying all Mexicans are murderers and rapists. Or all Muslims. That's what I'm paying attention to. And everybody is hedging their bets when it comes to marijuana. The government is sitting on this lie saying it's a gateway drug.

Sometimes experience trumps assumption.

Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery? Because certain things happened in the Constitution that had to change.