Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.

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

When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked.

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.

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

I believe that parts of people like John Garfield and Moms Mabley, the parts of them that I needed to be able to do what I'm doing, came into me. There's a very nice feeling that there are many, many spirits inside of me looking after me . . .

There are roles I am never considered for. Meryl Streep roles, let's say. Why not? I really wanted to do 'Ironweed,' for example, because the depression era in this country was one of the best for multiracial people, because everybody was poor. Everybody lived in the tents, and under buildings, and under gratings, together.