I moved around a lot as a kid, and when you're always entering new places at that age, you kind of have to learn how to adapt yourself, and I felt a really powerful way to do that was to make people laugh.
You wouldn't know that if you talked to Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International or some of the international activist organizations. Certainly you wouldn't know that if you were talking to some of the writers who criticize our drone policy. But I've actually told my staff it's probably good that they stay critical of this policy, even though I think right now we're doing the best that we can in a dangerous world with terrorists who would gladly blow up a school bus full of American kids if they could.
When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be an architect, because when I was 12 years old I had a guidance counselor that convinced me that that was the best career choice for me.
I choose to ignore hell in my life. When I was a little kid I asked my Dad "Am I going to go to hell?" because I'd heard about hell. And he said, "Nothing you're gonna do will get you into hell." And so I got to ignore it.
Any gay person understands at some point that he or she has to disappear, to become invisible. That's very difficult. You somehow have to kill yourself. This is asked of people who haven't got the tools to understand that it's all a social construction, and that they shouldn't inferiorize themselves. This is asked of little kids. But I still live in the same outcome.
Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don't exist...
Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.
If you want to get at African American poverty, the income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids.
Having a kid made me realize, "I have to take care of this kid, but I can't have the luxury of dropping everything in the world and spending every waking moment with him. I've got to work."
Looking back, I realize that this period of my life has irrevocably come to a close; my happy-go-lucky, carefree schooldays are gone forever. I don't even miss them. I've outgrown them. I can no longer just kid around, since my serious side is always there.
As a kid, I wasn't given the sense that celebrity, or fame, or any of that, was something to be impressed by, or to seek out. It was always impressed upon me that making something well crafted, something respected, was the most important thing to do with your life, and I've tried to do that where I can in my field.
Kids win this'n'that every day. Thousands of them. One out of a hundred fights professionally. One out of a thousand's worth watchin', one out of a million's worth coffee and doughnuts.