Quotes from Kenya Barris

And I feel like, as a black man within black culture, I know very well firsthand - as do my parents and my grandparents and great-grandparents - we're used to things not going our way.

There has never been a prosecuted case of slavery. There's no criminality to it. So, it was just like, 'It's over,' and thus, because it was over, and it was never considered 'wrong' in the prosecutable, criminal sense of the word, the country doesn't take it as wrong.

I don't necessarily believe that 'The Cosby Show' should disappear as a cultural reference, but it is. That's sad to me. I understand why. He was a man who possibly did some really bad things, and he should be punished beyond a doubt. But that show, and the impact it had not just on black culture, but culture, was amazing.

The PC way of handling culture has been to not talk about it. But we should be talking about it.

Sometimes you realize that life isn't defined by the good times.

Honestly, I regret not having spanked my kids.

I've been on predominantly 'white' shows before, and I had also been on predominantly 'black' shows. I would complain that when I was on a white show, they would only hire me because there was a black character or they needed a black voice. But then I would be mad if they went and hired a white dude in my position.

ABC has a general policy that you can't show images of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

For me, one of the big things I really worried about a lot was nuclear war growing up.

I would say any creative person has that: you can't just force a topic. Whether you're a painter, you want to do a cartoon. Anything. Something may come up that's not your style or suited to what you are working on at the moment. So you file it away and hopefully find a place for it.

My wife is a doctor, and we had a decent life financially. My kids were going to nice schools and had nannies. We weren't rich, but we were better off than I was growing up. And I looked around, and I was like, 'Who are these people?' It was the opposite of what I remembered growing up.

I'm not for having to support everything that's black, because I definitely don't. But I do feel like it is imperative for us to see that we are not a monolithic people.

Most importantly, I want my kids to be happy. You're only as happy as your saddest kid.

I've found that the more honest and true you are and can talk about a character and people's experiences, it's less ostracizing. It actually has the opposite effect than one would think. It makes the characters and the story more inclusive.

Writers' rooms are terrifying. You take someone whose never done this before, and this is their life's dream that is about to happen or not about to happen - that is an amazing amount of pressure to have.

When I was growing up, I never saw couples fight on the family sitcoms I loved to watch. Subsequently, when tough times arose in my own relationship, I wasn't prepared and felt so isolated and alone. Marital issues weren't a part of the narrative that television told me was a 'working relationship.'

At my core, I'm shy.

I feel like money is an interesting thing when you don't come from it.

Jill Soloway is a friend of mine. She does 'Transparent,' and she's amazingly funny and brilliant and bright. And I love her show.

Laurence Fishburne - he's a great actor, but he dances and sings, too? He can just do everything.

If Adam Sandler does a bad movie, he doesn't bring down the whole white race. But if Tyler Perry does, it's like, 'See what you guys do?' and that type of thing.

Black, white, rich, poor - we galvanize through the hard times. We really see it happen in relationships. In the best and worst of those moments, you come together, and you look for your tribe.

My mom went through civil rights; my dad went through civil rights. My name was Kenya because they wanted to give me an African name.

When you're in the middle of it, when you're a kid growing up, you don't think, 'This is my first heartbreak.' You just think, 'My heart is broken.' But then as a parent, you look back, and you see your child go through his or her first heartbreak, and you're realizing, 'Oh my God, this is her first heartbreak.'