I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.

Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.

All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.

Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.

You get to the point where your demons, which are terrifying, get smaller and smaller and you get bigger and bigger.

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

Freedom is heavy. You got to put your shoulder to freedom. Put your shoulder to it and hope your back holds up.

Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.

The tears of God are the meaning of history.

The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.

If you're the president you only have two jobs: peace and money.

Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.

If I were to do this over I'd play a lot more shows before I made a record

It's a great game - the pursuit of happiness.

People always complain about something. If you face yourself and stand up strong, you're OK. You can't go wrong.

Charlie Chaplin's genius was in comedy. He has no sense of humor, particularly about himself.

Relativity must replace absolutism in the realm of morals as well as in the spheres of physics and biology.

It's not terrible, I guess, but if Ricky Gervais was half as talented as me, maybe the show would actually be funny once in a while.