"I'm going to be the first black President of the United States. If Reagan can do it, I know I can." - to Newsday, 1999 "I've been writing since I was a kid. Short stories, poetry, and all of that, and acting is just an extension of that. It just came naturally. So it's coming full circle." "People don't want to pay 8 or 9 dollars to go see a problem that they have in their life, on screen. They pay to get away from that. That's why they watch soap operas." "The only limitations that I can have are the ones that I set on myself." "The whole Black Hollywood thing doesn't exist for me anymore. Once someone says that to themselves, they subject themselves to those rules." "Before ER a lot of people knew my name and some people knew my face. I saw big difference after ER, like, wow, I didn't know television was that powerful."