I think that Tyler Perry's genius really has been to tap into the domestic market. He knows what his audience is based on, having toured America for so long, and then giving them the blueprint for his films prior to the films coming out, and then the films have the built-in audience because they've seen it in theaters already.

Women have an ability to be still in a way men don't.

I'm one of those crazy people who have to write every day. Otherwise, I feel really sort of despondent, and it's because I don't feel very happy about not learning.

I believe that one reason I began writing essays - a form without a form, until you make it - was this: you didn't have to borrow from an emotionally and visually upsetting past, as one did in fiction, apparently, to write your story.

The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure.

One thing about being a stand-up is it's a one-man show. You gotta do everything. You're the producer, writer, director, and the actor. You just gotta be out there and perform and give your all. It's such an honest form of art that it just taught me so much, and it kind of prepared me for manhood at an early age.

Somehow, the process of making movies conventionally can dampen creativity because you've got to wait in line to do everything the way it's supposed to be, particularly with actors who are just hanging out waiting for the call.

I enjoy listening to contemporary rock on the college stations while I'm taking long walks, love gospel and soul music, am fascinated by hip-hop and rap as the new kind of urban 'beat' poetry and, come to think of it, find something interesting about just any kind of music.