I write to music, and Nina Simone is always on my playlist to write to. I mean, shes inspiring. She's truthful and real and raw.

Be passionate about your [movie] material, because you're going to have to overcome a lot of "No's," and it's that passion that fuels the fight.

A classic is a classic for a reason. Let's try to create new classics. The idea of repeating ourselves drives me a little crazy.

I want us to have it all, love and career. It's a struggle sometime to achieve that, but I love the struggle.

In film school, I knew I wanted to be a director, but I found out pretty damn quickly that nobody was just going to hand me a script to direct.

I write to music, so every script I have has its own playlist. Music just opens me up to the emotions that I'm writing.

Sports also teaches you that it's about the team, and the better your teammates are, the better they make you.

I grew up with white parents and until after college, it was a lot of confusion, especially because I grew up in an all-white area. So I never looked around and saw anyone who looked like me.

I love movies. And I dig a great love story: the kind that wrecks me, then builds me back up and leaves me inspired. I write what I want to see.

There are so many romantic comedies made, but very few dramas or love stories. And with a love story, you have to take time to develop three-dimensional characters.

It will take as long as it takes. Your work is to take the time and make the space. Everything else is beyond your influence.

You lose a child and you do understand each other's grief at first, but if you get out of step with each other, it's all over. Suddenly each of you is alone.

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.

Making an album is a long process, but it's a fun process.

I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love, and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me.

When someone goes out of himself to find God or fetch God, he is wrong.

I am fairly classless because it is very difficult to class someone who comes from a mixed marriage.

To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit.

When I was younger, I would eat everything.

I think that at the end of the day, when people understand the circumstances that led to the circumstances, they begin to sway their views.