I'm healthier in California, probably a little happier, maybe.

All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.

I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it.

People are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.

I'm not searching for the truth.That's too much pressure .

Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.

I think there's nothing new going on. Except that, you're even more public than you've ever been.There's some good and some bad to that.

If New York is the City That Never Sleeps, then Los Angeles is the City That's Always Passed Out on the Couch.

It's so hard to say what you really mean. For any number of reasons: to protect yourself, or if you just can't find the words.

Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.

In The Sellout I tried to capture how we can talk and see race, how we see urbanity, and how we see our history.

All that exists is the present moment

He who neglects to pray alone and in private, however assiduously he frequents public meetings, there gives his prayers to the wind.

The most intelligent members of the animal kingdom are human beings

Remember to look at your glass half full and not half empty. A lot of my strength comes from God. God has given me a gift - the gift of life - and it's amazing that I live each day.

If we are not totally blind, what we are seeking is already here. This is it.

I am happy doing standup so I don't ever want to stop doing it. But I wouldn't mind venturing off and doing other things that are creative.

Major North and myself went out in advance of the command several miles and killed a number of buffaloes.

The symbol and the metaphor are as necessary to science as to poetry.

Given a choice between hearing my daughter say "I'm pregnant" or "I used a condom", most mothers would get up in the middle of the night and buy them herself.

You don't write for actors. Actors come for characters you've made up.