I really love laughing.

You don't want to be the first person to tell your 5-year-old, like, 'You're going to have a life filled with disappointments and letdowns - enjoy!'

I like comedy as a group sport.

Because you want to keep an air of calm and cool.

I've never set out to write a funny movie or be a funny comedian as a woman. I am a woman. I don't really have a choice in the matter. My goal is just to be funny.

I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I’m African American but that doesn’t include the other half of me.

I was a loud child, and if my mother sang to me, I would be quiet.

Most of my life I didn't feel very normal. There's definitely been some moments where I feel like, all right, I've finally graduated and I'm a normal lady.

When I first moved to New York, someone who thought they knew more than I did said: "You have to always look like you know where you're going when you get out of the subway."

I'm always learning when I'm surrounded by great people. In every experience, I feel like I'm learning. I'm not like, "Oh good. I'm done! I don't have to learn anymore."

I like being a funny lady. I think theres nothing sexier than a funny lady.

I don't function without a heart, he said angrily and thenadded under his breath as he grabbed at the front of his Tshirt, He's right here.

Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.

We kind of lost a lot of that and puppeteers were sticking to the script and we thought everything needed to get a lot funnier, so we thought we would go to a good improv comedy instructor.

If you were to write your life motto, what would it say? Look out for number one? Or look out for the needs of others?

I didn't even start playing the piano until I was about 13 or 14. I guess I must have had a little talent or whatever-you-call-it, but I practised regularly, and that's what counts.

Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.

[The war on terrorism isn't a religious war, but] a defense of our right to make moral choices, to seek fellowship with God that is chosen and not commanded.

In Shakespeare, keep it simple. Don't over-inflect. The speech needs to be naturalistic and simple and accessible as much as possible.

Life is about coming to terms with the mistakes made. Learning to live with them even when they cut soul deep.

You look back, and it was important to bring back instrumental music, and it was great to be a part of that wave of instrumental rock music. And clearly it was something I was destined to do.