I want people to understand my journey and to be inspired by that. You can be an immigrant, and if you work really hard, you can have your own restaurant.

If we keep our little flame alive, our first feeling of enthusiasm of who we are, without the influence or intervention of others, we will prevail.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

I think every teenager is a hero. When we are young we feel so much pain. Go to school is like going to war, people let you down all the time. Sometimes it's very, very difficult to stay strong, but you have to.

I've never worked a day in my life. The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: 'Am I being joyful?' And if you've got a writer's block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you're writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.

There has been nothing more impactful on my life and meaningful to me than the introduction of Christ. That, hands down, blows away every joke I've ever written.