I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky.

Nothing can bring a real sense of security into the home except true love.

What makes me happy is just curling up in with my mom in her bed and watching a marathon of ‚CSI‘ and ‚Grey’s Anatomy‘ episodes with pints of ice cream.

I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, ‚We’re black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we’re all brought up differently.‘

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

Nashville is my home, and the reason why I get to do what I love.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

I like a good pair of jeans, but I also like putting on a nice tux. I’d rather go around in a good pair of jeans that you don’t wash every day, because they get more and more comfortable.

In 1997, in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I stated, ‚Your home is not an asset.‘ Real estate agents sent me hate mail.

Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

We want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

What an encouraging thought that Jesus – our beloved Husband – can find comfort in our lowly feeble gifts! Can this be, for it seems far too good to be true? May we then be willing to endure trials or even death itself if through these hardships we are assisted in bringing gladness to Immanuel’s heart.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

You can use your real identity, or you can use phone numbers for something like WhatsApp, and pseudonyms for something like Instagram. But in any of those you’re not just sharing and consuming content, you are also building relationships with people and building an understanding of people.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

I’d always somehow felt slightly as if I’d been born in the wrong country.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

World belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader or that king or prince or religious leader. World belongs to humanity.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, ‚black feminist‘ does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it’s just… womanish.

I love wearing whatever is comfortable, and that could be something which was in trend years ago. So, I don’t follow fashion.

Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

Cassius Clay is a name that white people gave to my slave master. Now that I am free, that I don’t belong anymore to anyone, that I’m not a slave anymore, I gave back their white name, and I chose a beautiful African one.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.

My children love Maleficent’s voice, so they always make me do it at home.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

We’re constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.