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.

If there wasn't something called acting, they would probably hospitalize people like me.

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.

That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in.

I had gone through several crazy headache bouts, and I realized that part of the reason I was having them was because I wasn't smoking marijuana. When my daughter gave me a vape pen, I realized that I could relegate it to where I needed it to be. And I would talk to my older grandkids in their 20s, and they'd say they use weed to stop cramps. That's when I really started to investigate and asked the question, "Is anybody doing this?" And they gave me that horrifying answer: "niche market".

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