Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.

Did you know that we are the only people in the United States who have to have their voting rights okayed every couple of years?

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.

I fear waking up one morning and finding out my life was all for nothing. We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. When you're kind to someone in trouble, you hope they remember and are kind to someone else and so on. Soon it will be like a wildfire.

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

The art of acting is to be other than what you are.

I think the idea that you know who your inner self is on a daily basis, because... you know. What's good for you 25 years ago may not be good for you now. So, to keep in touch with that, I think that's the first ingredient for success. Because if you're a successful human being, everything else is gravy, I think.