There's so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I've got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father - and how come that's not as newsworthy?

Greatness lives on the edge of destruction

I so connected to symbolically being able to turn lead into gold. My grandmother used to say, "Life give you a lemon, you go ahead and make lemonade." To me, that's alchemy.

I'm profoundly changed. There's a bittersweet emotion that I feel from playing this role. . . . I want the world to be different because I was here. However lofty or crazy or delusional that may sound, I want people's lives to be better because I was here.

I believe you need to be educated about what you want to do in life, but I don't believe you actually need college to get you there.

I grew up in the church, Resurrection Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and my grandmother was that grandmother at the church, the one always at the church, always putting on the events. It was deeply instilled in me that every action, everything I create, everything I say and do in the world is inexorably bound to the lives of everybody I come in contact with - and it's my responsibility to put things into the world that have a positive influence on humanity.

And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy's sleeping? I'm working.