I try not to respond with a pep talk, such as, "Everyone has talent, just try, you'll see." I skirt those kinds of answers.

I want kids to understand that making pictures is similar to making music; there are so many instruments and so many tunes that the possibilities for how you play are truly limitless.

I wanted to show that an African-American artist could make it in this country on a national level in the graphic arts. I want to be a strong role model for my family and for other African Americans.

I've always felt that if I worked hard enough and continued to refine my craft, while staying curious about our times and our world, I just might have something to contribute.

I never demonstrate how art should be made or what the outcome should look like. Instead, give kids the tools and the materials to make their own art. Have them experience the process.

Make it all about the work. Everything else will follow.

If you do the best work you can, the reward is ultimately your self-satisfaction - the sense that you have done the best you can. And then there's that piece of how others respond.

I feel the calmest when I'm drawing or when I'm creating images. I love connecting the mind with the hand and producing something - that is very comforting and centering for me.

We live in a time when there is an abundance of ways we can express ourselves.

African American writers and artists, by the very nature of what they do, will actually enhance or bring together people in a way that might be very, very healthy.

I have to believe that when I finish a project, that I will not only grow as an artist, but as a person.

Some kinds of misery make you hate the world, but some kinds make you hate yourself, and--butter and cheese not withstanding--Neve had no question that Spear was the latter.

Lincoln on Grant: "He makes things get. Wherever he is, he makes things move.

Even hatred of vileness Distorts a mans features.

Be sure, whatever you leave out, that you teach the children the three R’s,-Ruin, Redemption, and Regeneration.

The more our feelings diverge, the more deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side.

All's well in the end, if you've only the patience to wait.

The history of the bow and arrow is the history of mankind

The great thing about making cognac is that it teaches you above everything else to wait-man proposes, but time and God and the seasons have got to be on your side.

I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.

She who desires peace must see, suffer and be silent.