“After college, I shot a pilot for a show on Lifetime, which was basically House of Style for a TV lover. I think I got paid $1,500, and I was like, “Mom, I’m moving out! I made it!” I did two seasons of that, but I felt like a talking head and wanted to do more.”

I’m extremely blessed to have the extraordinary mother that I have, and I don’t mean Diana Ross, I mean the mother. My mom paved a road that didn’t exist, as did Oprah.

One of the things I’ve realized is how portable God is. No really, He’s everywhere!

We all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing.

Nothing goes to windward like a 747.

The clothing, the makeup, the freedom of expression in [the models’] bodies. It was Linda and Christy and Naomi at the time. So I modeled before college.

My generation is one of the first generations of “choiceful” women – women who have actually had the choice of how they architect their lives – and I don’t think shame should have any place in that. But as that generation, you get cuts and bruises.

Sometime in my second year at Brown [University], I took an acting class. And the lightbulb went off for me. I fell in love with it. I realized that everything I was afraid of about myself, all my fears, could be used in that world.

My mom helped me. I was very shy growing up, but my shyness sort of manifested in a big personality.

This woman [Bow] was not simply a reflection of who her husband was. She was her own whole self. And even if we weren’t exploring life through her eyes, when we did see her it was clear that she had a full life.

Differences in experience, points of view and opinions aren’t what pulls us apart. It’s what pulls us together.

I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.

There is a way to be a woman, ask for what we deserve and be able to negotiate.

Someone asked me recently, “Do you get sick of people asking you about your hair?” And the reason I don’t is because I actually feel like you could chronicle my journey of self-acceptance through my journey with my hair. It’s a badge of something bigger.

Sometimes I feel like art is supposed to mirror life, but strangely it’s as if art is trying to catch up to life, to a certain extent?

My bathroom is filled with hair and makeup stuff and I play with it all the time. What the real lesson is, is that you can own your own sense of beauty. It doesn’t have to be something you get from somewhere else.

[Black-ish creator] Kenya Bariss wrote on Girlfriends. We’ve been friendly since then. He sent me [the pilot] and said, “I wrote it for you.” But I know what that means in this industry.

I never really thought comedy was a career option, just something I did for fun. Suddenly I realised I was getting paid which was a bonus. I studied for a diploma with the London College of Music, and teaching was something I thought I might do but comedy intervened.

I’m trying to pay off my apartment so I have something tangible. I actually figured out if I paid off my place my reward would be that I would pay an extra four grand a year in taxes.

You gotta’ sell a million records before you talk about getting paid at a major [label].

It still makes me giggle that I’m paid to act.

I was pretty sad. But he was probably right; I did have a voice a bit like a goat, but my dad told me to never give up and to keep going, and it’s paid off.

I sang for my family. And I think probably the first time I sang and got paid for it, I was about 6 or 7.

People have paid for content. They always have.

When you’re paid to do a job, it’s better to give a few minutes more to it, than a few minutes less. That’s one of the differences between doing a job honestly and doing it dishonestly! See?