I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me.

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.

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 . . .

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.

You couldn't always trust the history books. They told a diluted truth, a truth by committee.

[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 believe strongly that most people in this country U.S. don't want a totalitarian state...And when conservatives say, "Get the government out of my backyard," the reality is, you can't say that and put somebody in the White House who's gonna be in your business.