My father was a poor man, very poor in a British colonial possession where class and race were very important.

Living consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the moment.

You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.

To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.

I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was... a human being.

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

A person doesn't have to change who he is to become better.

I do know that I'm responsible not for what happens, but for what I make of it.

I am the me I choose to be.

You don't have to become something that you aren't to become better than you are.

I set my star so high that I would constantly be in motion toward it.

The idea being that if I was so incredibly small, then I could do almost anything, because what impact would I have, really? What damage could be done, being so puny in the big scheme?

ANDREW: But do you think there’s a line? You know, where you discourage the next Charlie Parker from becoming Charlie Parker?FLETCHER: No. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged.

I'd never forget how it felt to say those words. To be in our place. In love with you, in love with us, in love with our secret, with the island we were building, keeping out the whole wide world.

Love is the light that casts no shadow.

I am not a violent person. I actually don't like to hurt people.

People might seem to have a perfectly fine life but inside, we don't even know if they've suffered.

Everything must have a beginning ... and that beginning must be linked to something that went before.

I am sent on assignments just like guys. I have covered presidential campaigns, natural disasters, tragedies, red carpets, medical stories and more.

It's useful to be able to recognize whether you're on track or not. To have that belief, but also paranoia about am I tracking against my investment thesis.

What I've found is that there is a tremendous interest in these issues, across the political spectrum, sort of left-right terms we used to describe people don't really hold here exactly.