Madea is a cross between my mother and my aunt. She's the type of grandmother that was on every corner when I was growing up.

The most important thing that I learned in growing up is that forgiveness is something that, when you do it, you free yourself to move on.

What I've learned is you treat women right.

Being on the 'Alex Cross' set, and watching and learning about and paying attention to everything that was going on there, I realized, 'Here is a moment for me to learn.'

Gymnastics, for me, gave me a lot of self-pride: that drive to want to be great at something for myself. But it also gave me a sense of appreciation toward God. Now that I'm getting older, I really appreciate the talents God gave me. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

To be able to keep the promise I made to God, I think that keeps me going. No matter how much the money had been, I would have always fulfilled my promise, as that's the way I am.

Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures.

The Why's of suffering keep us shrouded in a seemingly bottomless void of abstraction where God is reduced to a finite ethical agent, a limited psychological personality, whose purposes measure on the same scale as ours.