I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.

I never thought about success. I always thought about doing the job at hand. My goal was getting through the show that night.

My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation.

I've been writing about growing old for some time, really from the beginning of my career. It's something I'm apparently hung up about and now that I am old, hopefully I speak about it with some authority.

I don't like 'comedy,' I like 'life,' which has everything in it.

I was in the music industry as Amanda Diva for 10 years but I realized that I had bigger work to do and needed to get busy doing that work. I really do believe that I'm here for a bigger purpose, and I want to be a role model and speak for the black community and black women specifically. Humor was the way it felt most organic and effective for me.