I'm not a role model. I say parents should parent and monitor their kids.

The universe will put signposts in your life. You can either ignore them or embrace them. You can choose and wish for all the things you want, but the things that are coming to you, you will never be able to hide from and the things that you want so bad that are not supposed to be for you for whatever reason, they'll never come to you.

I acted when I was a real little kid. My mother was an actress in a Miami theater company comprised of actors from Cuba like her and I was the default kid.

It's funny, because I've never thought of myself as a Hispanic actor, like in 'American Gangster,' I'm playing an Italian. I've always been fortunate enough to have been allowed to play all these diverse roles.

All of my songwriting success happened within a four month time span, and my record label deal happened within the next three months.

When a parent says about a book, 'That's not my child's world,' I remind them of the future. Social fluency will be the new currency of success. Not experiencing diversity challenges our kids' future in the global work force. It handicaps them from making America and the world more livable and just.

If we want to close the achievement gap, build a well-educated workforce and responsible citizenry, we must start with our youngest children.

There's a panic, a rush, to this 'achievement' of fame. There's also the ambivalence of fame: the love of it and the hatred of it. We sometimes hate the famous while, at the same time, straining to achieve fame oneself.