Martin Luther King was a voice to the voiceless, and he did that tirelessly, and his faith was the engine to that. But he was just a human being, at the end of the day.

I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.

One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.

You can’t have people curating culture in this way when we need to see things in order to reform from them.

If you merely focus on what we already know, then it's not revelatory. You may as well just go and watch a documentary or a few videos on Youtube, and you're good.

I don't have a tailor, but I do love clothes.

Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice.

Find the audience, be excellent, and you will be fine.

I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in the USA is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally.

We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.

Considering that I'm British and I talk the way I do, I love it when a director takes a chance on me.

Be gentle and humble in heart.

No decision in the world outlives the time, place, and person’s constituents on the basis of which it was made.

Music exists for the purpose of growing an admirable heart.

We were a very small circle of writers. Everybody brought to the table their own life experience.

When a woman isn't feeling good about herself and you combine that with her period, eventually she'll ask you if you like her body. You have to say no.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.

Where there is no difference, there is only indifference.

Most of the lyrics are rooted in my own experiences. But there is some sheer fabrication.

Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone.