“Acting, it’s the disappearance of self, disappearance of your own needs and your own wants and the kind of embracing of the character that makes it work.”

I want to span different genres. I want to be able to transform. I want to be able to be sexy, and funny, and quirky, and all the other things that I am. And I feel that the best way that I can achieve that is by producing.

That’s why there’s so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.

I am not a glam woman – this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.

Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one’s balance. I think that it’s very damaging.

Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that’s a powerful message in this time of political strife.

[I listen to] “Uptown Funk”, Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress – I listen to that.

Relationships change us and make us grow.

I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.

Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that’s inside of you.

Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.

I don’t have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn’t love me has to say about me.

I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.

You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.

I can’t deal with actors! I can’t deal with myself. We’re neurotic and miserable… I love doing what I’m doing, but while I’m doing it, I’m miserable.

When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.

What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It’s the weight on our shoulders. That is what’s actually different. We have the weight and burden of history.

I’m dyslexic, I have attention-deficit disorder, and I’ve got something like a hereditary tremor.

The way my brain processes information is quite odd. I mean, I have Attention Deficit Disorder and another learning disability I can’t even spell. I don’t even have a high school diploma. I’m smart, but you can’t prove it on paper.

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.

I cannot conceive of a politically feasible solution to this problem which will overdo cutting the deficit, where overdoing means harming the economy. It might be technically possible, but it is not realistic.

There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth.

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the ‘hidden’ confiscation of wealth.

I came to a stark realization: chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits.