I love to see a woman in high-heeled shoes. There's something about the curve of the feet up the leg to the butt that's really, really wonderful, and the right pair of shoes can give you the right silhouette.

Oprah is very, very, very special to me. She's an amazing woman.

Having my son has changed so much of what I dream about. It used to be about business, business, what's the next deal? What's the next movie? Now it's about him.

I'm trying to conquer swimming. I'm getting there. I've gotta conquer it. I had a fear of drowning and tunnels and flying. I started flying and got my pilot's license, so I conquered that. Now, I'm onto swimming and tunnels.

Macaroni and cheese was my mother's special dish. She'd also make jambalaya and dirty rice and bake a ham that would be incredible. And greens. But if you were looking for vegetables and healthy things, there weren't a lot of those.

I haven't read a book in a very, very long time because, when I'm writing, I don't like to see other people's work. I don't want to see something great and not be able to use it, and I don't want to have any subconscious influences.

I think every one of us, in life, have some sort of moment that has happened that we wish we could have done differently or that we wish could have had a different outcome.

I think that with everything I've done, in the end, whoever the central character is, they would find a way to forgive, because that's really important to me.

If you look at everything I do - even in 'Boo!' there's a message, and it's always 'faith, family, forgiveness.' That's the greatest gift that I've been given. I can get a message to the very people I grew up with, the millions who love what I do.

Norman Lear is my all-time, ultimate hero. He's an amazing man. That's one person I'm looking forward to meeting. What he did, with shows and sitcoms, he's my hero.

My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things women go through.

There's this great thing called the 'Chitlin' Circuit,' which I started my shows on and back in the day when, you know, Ray Charles and Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, they couldn't get into white establishments, so they went on this circuit and toured. They were huge stars in their own community, you know, and that's pretty much my same story.

I want a lot of people to see my movies. More black people. More white people. I want to make that connection.

I had one request when I started doing the plays. My prayer was, 'God, let me do well enough to be able to take care of my mother.' I was able to do that 'til the day she died because of my audience.

The most important thing that I learned in growing up is that forgiveness is something that, when you do it, you free yourself to move on.

As I experience life and go through things, that's what I write about.

After Obama became president, I realized that black people could not have put him in the White House - it had to be a collective effort of everybody in the country.

I don't have a writer's room. I write all the shows myself. Ninety-one episodes a season, I'm sitting there at the computer writing and writing and writing because I want the voice to be authentic so that the audience is hearing from me and not other writers.