The way things have gone in my life, sure, I could have been a bitter person. But I just find bitter people really un-fun, you know? And who wants to be that person?
My life was very compartmentalized. I went to a school that was all white, and then I went home and to my black family.
Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.
For me, 'Blade Runner' is one of the big influences in my life - I saw it when I was 13 or 14, when it first came out, and since, I've seen it many, many times.
I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don't know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.
There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.
Most people have a blank slate and can start from nothing. But for me, I had to break a bad habit that I've been doing all of my life, which is freestyle hip-hop.
I don't remember everything about my life, but I'm very fortunate to have a group of friends I can rely on - they fill in the blanks.
My family is mostly a chosen one. I've managed to invite some really amazing people into my life and they become family. Brothers, sisters, siblings, mentors, role models. And I like to live that way, where your family bleeds out into the larger community.
Hip hop has been an integral part of my life and my whole career. I started off doing videos with Ice Cube and Dre and Mary J. Blige and TLC.
I try to live my life every day in the present, and try not to turn a blind eye to injustice and need.
I know I'm going to blow one day. My life is doomed the way it is. I have no future.
I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.
I had to come out to my mother three times over a twelve-year period, but I first came out to her when I was sixteen. It didn't go over so well, because I grew up in the Pentecostal Church. It was a very strict environment. She has since done a lot of work and has really blown my mind. She has learned about my life and has changed her mind.
There has been nothing more impactful on my life and meaningful to me than the introduction of Christ. That, hands down, blows away every joke I've ever written.
I have had a number of less-than-enviable moments in my life when dealing with other people. I won't attempt to blunt that by saying I am not the only one.
I didn't go to the Bob Marley and the Wailers show twice in my life, and I've regretted it every day since.
Bodybuilding gave me a healthy way to gain weight and learn to balance my life. Earning my pro card within a year, I got to do something I enjoyed and be healthy at the same time.
Having spent the greater part of my life under a Communist dictatorship, I am very familiar with the Bolshevik mentality according to which an author in general, and an eminent author in particular, is always guilty, and must be punished accordingly.
I remember Ella Fitzgerald sort of coming into my life like a bolt of lightning - like, what is that? It was one of the purest examples of God in art that I'd ever seen.
