I think if I could not get myself off my cushion, off my couch, or away from whatever I'm eating - or drinking or partying or whatever - if I couldn't get away from that, I would have a heavy heart.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.

I don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of.

Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.

In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.

Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he’d tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied.

I was blessed to work with The Jazz Messengers when the two piano players were Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea.

When you feel small and weak, remind yourself that you are a child of the universe who is connected to the infinite source.

I'm a producer/rapper so I feel like I can do anything. I can do all kinds of music. I've done all kinds of music and I'm good at it.

I've never made a film using dialogue or speech.

I'm for anything that lets writers stretch, in or out of their series.

Modern American cinema seems to me superficial. The intention is to understand a certain reality, and the result is nothing but a photographing of that reality.

Life is too short to rush around and be too busy for your kids.