You know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.

Children are a quality of life ... when our children are happy, then we are better as human beings.

I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?

When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.

I don't think in terms of failure....I don't feel like anyone outside of me should be setting limitations. People should be encouraged to shoot for the moon.

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died. I just don't think it's right. If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?