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 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.

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

Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.

...empathy is the most important power there is. Without it, we are doomed. With it, we can truly change the world.(interview from USC)

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.

Absence is one of the most useful ingredients of family life, and to dose it rightly is an art like any other.

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

I'm very fortunate in the sense that outside of cohabitating relationships and so forth, I've always got on just as well with women.

When you cross the street, take my hand

I'm the NBA's best NFL player, and I've always been the sexiest 7-footer in the NBA - for 12 years running.

I ain't scared of the fall / I've felt the ground before.

Turn on, Tune in, Drop out.