It's the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller - writer, musician, filmmaker.

God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a color.

I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.

People don't realize you're blowing over changes, time changes, harmony, different keys. I mark a point in my solo where it's got to peak at point D I go to A, B, C D then I'm home.

I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.

It is hard to find romance in the present because there's nothing left to the imagination.

I have been very fortunate to be successful in business, and I believe that it is right that people who have this type of wealth should give something back into society.

There's nothing attractive about doing a documentary. Nothing. It's hard, hard work, and I find having all the attention of the day on me a very unattractive proposition.

I talk in subjects and verbs, and sort of wind around in concentric circles until I get far enough away from the beginning so that I can call it the end, and it ends.

Intellect alone is a dry and rattling thing.

In all my work there's this notion of the melancholic. You can make a photograph about the sublime, but you can't make the sublime itself.

As strong as the United States is, we can't deal with terrorism alone.

That's it baby, if you've got it, flaunt it.

I took a year and a half off, when my kid was born, because I didn't want to be one of those dads where the kid doesn't know who his dad is.

There is only good art and mediocre art.

I don't agree with the libertarians. I want my security first. I'll deal with all the details after that.