“I applaud what the Oscars are doing to promote diversity. I think it’s great.”

I just said let’s get some poets on tv. And when they said that sounded unlikely, I made it worse. I said, no man, I want to put a bunch of black poets on stage, too.

You need Black [people] sometimes to understand things about Black culture.

Hip-hop is about tearing down the system to better it, tearing down the system to better themselves. No matter how flimsy it might seem, they always wanted the finer things in life.

I don’t like to say, Oh, this is my favorite record because there was a moment that that record made me feel a certain way. The one on the radio at the present moment could be the one that’s most inspiring, because it’s at that second that you’re aware of “the infinite everything.”

Mistakes only cost you when you don’t acknowledge them.

I think it’s very important. I’ve gone into prisons to meditate with inmates. It’s something I plan to do with Tim Robbins soon.

Hollywood is full of very liberal people, but it still has an infrastructure that needs to be broken.

I don’t believe that people create their own visions. Rather, I believe that visions are actually God’s way of communicating with us.

Not every move you make has to be a great leap

The elected officials should be working for the voters who elected them. Money corrupts the process. Why would you be giving a candidate money unless you expect something in return?

The research shows that if you meditate, the mind becomes still, and they can see the functionality and gray matter in the brain increase, the nervous system calm, the immune system improve and a reduction in stress.

I think that diversity is key for the next American entrepreneurs. They want to be a part of this society where there is so much diversity they have to have people from all the experiences.

The world belongs to the people who say, ‘I can’.

Well, it’s the last step of the Civil Rights Movement: you know, wrap your hands around some money.

No matter where you’re from or what you’ve done, you’re never stuck in a particular circumstance, relationship, or cycle unless you say you are.

You have to be present, awake and happy now.

For the first time, you can actually see the losers turn green

I don’t have any ambition to make lots of money or win an Oscar or anything like that. It’s not about that for me.

I feel very honored and special really. You can’t imagine, to arrive at the Oscars when you arrive so low, and you can’t go further than the Oscars.

Stephen Sondheim told me that Oscar Hammerstein believed everything that he wrote. So there’s great truth in the songs, and that’s what was so wonderful to find.

I won and I get to scream and jump a little. But I got to go back to work tomorrow.