I started making music... I guess I was 12, and I started playing 'Guitar Hero.' And you know, it got to a point where on expert, you can only exceed to a certain point. And so, you know, I was like, 'Let's play real guitar. Let's not waste more time.' So, I got my mom, I told her to buy me a guitar for Christmas, and I started making music then.
People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.
Writing is what I do. It's like breathing to me at a certain point, but if I couldn't write, I do like cooking.
My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience. I never know who's influencing me at any time.
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.
There's certain things that I was taught growing up about not quitting and seeing things through. I think if I would have come home and told my dad that I was going to quit the team, I think he would have kicked me out of the house. I don't think I'd have a place to stay.
My mom was my main influence growing up, and Phylicia Rashad reminded me a lot of my mother, just the way she handled certain things, she was... not soft-spoken but smooth-spoken. Just very calm, cool, collected about things.
People often think I'm a faker, but I'm usually honest, in a certain way - in such a way that often nobody believes me!
I'm not concerned with people seeing me in a certain way. Some people see me as a kid, some people see me as an adult. But I'm seriously not going to complain how anybody sees me, as long as they see me.
When people meet me in person, they're usually surprised at how petite I am because there's this idea that because I'm black, I just look a certain way.
I care about the people I know and love the most, but I also care about what the people I don't know think in the sense that I want them to think and understand me in a certain way. I don't base my life around either one, and I don't change the way I live to please either set of people, but I do care.
If we are allowed to do experiments on monkeys because we are superior to them in a certain way, then someone who is superior to me is allowed to do experiments on me.
I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me.
It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
I had a certificate that said, 'Doctor of Mixology, Harvard University,' that I actually got from Harvard University. A friend of mine was a research assistant over there and it was one of those student or university perks and she brought me in on that. So I am a doctorate from Harvard and it only took me one afternoon.
Reading is such a personal thing to me. I'd much rather give someone a gift certificate to a bookstore, and let that person choose his or her own books.
If I change my name again y'all can have me certified as crazy. Alright?
I don't even read positive reviews unless they are absolutely certified by eight different people to not contain one thing that could upset me.
