The death penalty is inhumane... whether that person is in a [jail] or it's bin Laden.

I was able to do The Saint of Fort Washington, on the relationship between two homeless men.

We have to be that wedge that drives the question and asks the hard questions

I try to find hope in struggle and resistance in small places as much as I can.

If we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children's mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives.

I have the capacity to express what I feel needs to be expressed. And I try to do what I believe in.

Art is about the dynamics of the human experience.

It's important for people of color to link up with issues around globalization, food security, health, the environment.

What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.

Today, the media dictatorship is becoming a substitute to military dictatorship. The big economic groups are using the media and decide who can speak, who the good guy is and who the bad guy is.

When someone you know passes on, the only thing you can do is keep moving forward.

If you don't know where you want to be in five years, how do you ever expect to get there?

Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment.

I didn't feel entitled to become a star. I didn't expect it.

Breakfast was only worth having when somebody else made it for you.

Women seldom forfeit their claims to respect to men whom they respect.

Golfers don't scream. Golfers just adjust the pleats in their pants and go from there. That's about as antagonistic as we get.

I'd harbored hopes that the intelligence that once inhabited novels or films would ingest rock. I was, perhaps, wrong.

You need a sanctuary. Somewhere where it doesn't feel like it's being tainted by everybody's opinions and other people's money. I think I'm kind of homesick right now.

If I ran a retail store, which I have done in my life, I would go into it from a place of "I am thrilled to be here, and I am honored to be able to serve other people."

She eventually forgave him, because she understood him.