The people who invented race, who grouped us together as "black," were inventing and categorizing their ability to do something vicious and wrong.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

Belief isn’t something you can be reassured about. It’s something that has to come from inside.

I'm a pretty big dork. It's crazy. I'm one of those people who grew up with all kinds of musicals, but I was right at that age where 'Rent' was a big deal for me and for my friends.

You know what 'FEAR' stands for? It stands for 'False Evidence Appearing Real.' It's the darkroom where Satan develops his negatives.

It's insane to me to ask anybody to be what they're not. Know what you know the best, love the most. That's always going to be the answer to the thing that you have the best shot at winning at.

Why I enjoyed doing Iron Man because it opened me up to this new world where fans are so passionate.

I don't know if I was funny as a child, though I always thought my parents really enjoyed listening to me sing.

Science fiction is about what could be but isn't; fantasy is about what couldn't be.

After every single take, I laugh. It's my own awkwardness and discomfort about being an actor.

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

Let a gentleman be known to have been cheated of twenty pounds, and it costs him forty a-year for the remainder of his life.