I was a pretty angry kid, and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

I get in trouble when I say things like, 'I'm attracted to violence.' I was a pretty angry kid, and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

I'm still a firm believer that we were definitely put here to use our minds, and that is what makes us different. And that that's the key. If there is anything that is going to stop mankind from being such a beastly, destructive creature, it is reason.

You want to believe that there's one relationship in life that's beyond betrayal. A relationship that's beyond that kind of hurt. And there isn't.

As a little girl, my destiny was stamped onto the canvas of my imagination at 5 years old. I was watching soaps with my grandmother... The most gorgeous black women I had ever seen in my life came out, and I knew that that is what I wanted to do - be fabulous and black and on TV.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

The theater, for me, has always been a place where I'm free to be more creative, a place to sharpen my tools.

You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.