As kids, there's somehow the fear that these bullies can end your life if they want to. Everything is blown up, and occasionally that kind of awful thing does happen.

Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way.

Sometimes blessings come in strange packages.

I look at racism as one of the social demons. And, in its worst, it's violent and it's a systemic commitment to oppression.

The conversation about race is inevitable. It's one that people know that we have to have and continue to have.

A greater truth that I think we are faced with on a day-to-day basis as minorities is: We are the color of skin first and people second.

How we act with each other really reveals our most animal instincts.

I can fathom anything, man. I love biting off more than I can chew and figuring it out.

[ When I met Barack Obama] He says, I do a pretty good me myself - he said something like that. But he's - he is a close talker. He's a touchy guy.

I just think racism is within each and every one of us. It's everyone's responsibility to figure out how they deal with this kind of obsolete instinct.

I think that human beings are the most awful monster we have ever seen.

When I hug you, I feel like I am hugging the universe of joy, and I emerge with the ecstasy of life.

She knew that she must sit quietly and patiently and, like her beloved butterflies, eventually he would come to rest.

I'm a huge believer in science. But I don't think it explains everything.

Because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.

I don't even like showing my stuff to publishers and editors much.

When I make records, I never listen to stuff after it's done. Ever.

Man is as full of potential as he is of importance.

But I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry, whether it's the writer or the spy.

Sometimes I feel like the Tom Hanks character in Big. But my life is not a movie. I never have to go back to Coney Island to find the fortune-teller machine so I have to grow up again.