When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a wide range of colors, but you find instances in a lot of black literature in which the blackness is used as a metaphor. In some places, you can find an extreme blackness used as a descriptive.

I gave up on the idea of making art a long time ago, because I wanted to know how to make paintings; but once I came to know that, reconsidering the question of what art is returned as a critical issue.

I used to always say - and I think a lot of artists think of it this way - that when you see a black figure, the way the critical establishment operated, you can only imagine that figure having a sociological value. They never say the ways in which their aesthetics were equally worthy of consideration.

My ambition was never to make a lot of money. It wasn't to travel around the world. I was really just struggling to make the best pictures I could make.

I plays Joe's best friend. I am the only one he has ever been able to trust in his life, so I help him understand what happened to him when he was younger.

The most special relationships, in my experience, are based on a combination of trust and mutual respect.

First of all, returning from motherhood, I was looking for something lighter, and I wasn't as much attracted to Kate as I was to the relationship between the two people.

I think life is sort of like a competition, whether it's in sports, or it's achieving in school, or it's achieving good relationships with people. And competition is a little bit of what it's all about.