I am a writer. I suppose I think that the highest gift that man has is art, and I am audacious enough to think of myself as an artist - that there is both joy and beauty and illumination and communion between people to be achieved through the dissection of personality.

In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.

When I read Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros as a freshman at Rutgers, it all clicked - that writing was all I wanted to do. It became my calling.

I consider skateboarding an art form, a lifestyle and a sport. 'Action sport' would be the least offensive categorization.

There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.

I wanted to play roles which offered new ways of viewing black women and black people in general- and I have done that. And I have always, whether I needed to pay the rent or not, I've always turned down roles which I thought were stereotypical. And so when I look at my body of work in that respect, I am really happy. Because I feel my work does say something positive and that was what I always set out to do.