The roles we play in each other's lives are only as powerful as the trust and connection between us--the protection, safety, and caring we are willing to share.
Can I just tell you the truth? I get asked to do a lot of stuff. And all of the years that people have asked me to do things for the film festival, I couldn't. And so this year, I thought, "Oh, my god, I don't have a day job. If somebody ask me to do something, I'm going to do it."
For me at this time in my life I recognize that everything is about moving closer to that which is God. And without a full, spiritual center - and I am not talking about religion, I am talking about without understanding the fullness from which you've come you can't really fulfill your supreme moment of destiny.
I never had children, never even thought I would have children. Now I have 152 daughters; expecting 75 more next year. That is some type of gestation period.
The nature of Buddhism, as I understand it, is to believe that we are all pure and radiant at our core. And yet we see around us so much evidence that people are not acting from a place of purity and radiance.
I see all art as a complement to telling people's stories. I'm in the storytelling business. I believe that the humanity that all of us share is the stories of our lives, and everybody has a story. Your story is as important as the next person's story.
I really feel a sense of responsibility first as a creation of a force that I call God, that's bigger than myself. And because I'm black, I feel the responsibility to that. I feel the responsibility to my womanness. But more importantly, I feel a responsibility to my humanness.
Let excellence be your brand... When you are excellent, you become unforgettable. Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you're doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you.
It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control.