I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That's exactly what I've done.

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?

My mother's great. She has the major looks. She could stop you from doing anything, through a closed door even, with a single look. Without saying a word, she has that power to rip out your tonsils.

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?

Who amongst us doesn't want to be a hero?

I dig being a mother.

Most women do not have [abortions] with some sort of party going on. It is the hardest decision that a woman ever has to make . . . One of the reasons we've had to make this decision is because so many women were found bleeding, dead, with hangers in their bodies because they were doing it themselves. The idea of this was to make it safe and clean - that was the reason the law came into effect.