It bums me out tremendously what the church has become, and if it's got me bummed, imagine what Jesus Christ must be feeling.

What I am is a humanist before anything - before I'm a Jew, before I'm black, before I'm a woman. And my beliefs are for the human race - they don't exclude anyone.

If you read to me I could tell you everything that was read. They didn't know what it was. They knew I wasn't lazy, but what was it?

We're dealing with old issues that aren't ours. We carry them and we pass them on to those who come after us. I am hoping to crack some of those.

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

I grew up in a time when it would never have occurred to anyone to tell me there was anything I couldn't do.

I'm a big old egotistical baby and that's okay. I can accept it.