I'm told that I look like a nice girl. But, yes, I do a full contact sport, and when people ask what I do, they are a bit surprised when I say, 'A martial art, a full contact sport.'
The nice thing about my job is that it allows me to look deeper into issues and then tell stories with that information.
Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.
I'm kind of a builder of institutions. I think I've got some ability to look at what's out here, look at a playing field, and identify gaps and niches.
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when you look into the darkness of the abyss the abyss looks into you. Probably no other line or thought more inspires or informs my work.
My nighttime look is exactly like my daytime look - like I'm going to a super fancy funeral. I guess it would be considered extreme to most people, but I like it that way. The idea of conventional beauty isn't attractive to me... that's why, when I was growing up, I felt kind of torn about makeup.
If you look at the Nile on a map of Egypt, you don't think it has moved very much, but the river is very violent and has moved over time.
Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.
I love the Nineties because more than any other period of time, there was such an eclectic mix of styles going on. More so than in the Sixties and Seventies, when there was an overriding look and sound.
I empathise with the fact that people want to look their best. A hat is all about how it makes you feel - it's so much better than a nip and tuck, and a lot less painful.
If you look at the ecological circuitry of this planet, the ways in which materials like carbon or sulfur or phosphorous or nitrogen get cycled in ways that makes them available for our biology, the organisms that do the heavy lifting are bacteria.
Look. Art knows no prejudice, art knows no boundaries, art doesn't really have judgement in it's purest form. So just go, just go.
We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.
I have no desire to look at myself.
To my mind, it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives. But it is something you cannot possibly escape: your psychological make-up is such that you are inclined to look back over your shoulder.
There used to be that you only had four or five critics that you would look to for intelligent conversation, but now there are millions of people who can just press 'send,' and everyone's got an opinion even if no one cares what they say. It makes things a little bit tougher.
I moved from acting to stand-up because castings are just about what you look like. It doesn't matter if you can act or not. In comedy, no one cares what you look like.
I was just taught very early that if I didn't solve problems, I was headed for a very dark path. Problems were everywhere. Now, even if there are no problems, I look for problems. I'm like, 'You know what? I don't like the way this spoon works. I want to design a new spoon.'
Like a lot of black people, I grew up straight po'. Wasn't no question about whether we was po', either. If you really wanted to know, all you had to do was look in our refrigerator.
I did it my way, and I have no regrets when I look back on my career that it was just a big focus for me.
