“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.”

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 have to take some time to dream some new dreams. I feel like there’s a treasure hunt in front of me. A treasure hunt that is speckled with and seeded by a deep-rooted wild freedom.

Why am I beating my hair up? Because I want it to look like something that it isn’t? These are questions that I’ve been pondering my whole life.

Wisdom means to choose now what will make sense later.

I want to be awake. I want to choose kindness, live & let live. I want joy, gratitude, and peace today.

I think television is doing a better job than films in terms of representing people, but television is still not diverse.

My mom didn’t adhere to any of those typical rules. She woke us up for school every morning, and was there at dinner or would call at bedtime. She never left for longer than a week. She recorded while we were sleeping.

If I’m going to show cleavage or chest then I don’t show leg. I show one thing. If I show leg then everything else is covered up.

In some of the darkest and hardest moments, there is always a part of me that is okay. And I can always access that part of me.

It would drive the photographers crazy because I would giggle and tell jokes. I was gregarious, and looking back, I realize I had a captive audience.

Somehow [Kenya Bariss] has figured out how to explore these very weighty, sticky, sharp topics, and still be funny and not make fun of the topic.

I’m a really big believer in self care. One of the ways I nourish my soul is I eat the way I live my life – joyfully.

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to… because I was looking for a deal. I didn’t have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.

I hate the word ‘cheap’. People are cheap. Clothing is either expensive or inexpensive.

It’s wearing spiritual clothing and spiritual concepts, but it is really no different than a drunk in the gutter who doesn’t want to feel the pain anymore.

If you prefer smoke over fire then get up now and leave. For I do not intend to perfume your mind’s clothing with more sooty knowledge.

Every song, every form of art, clothing, shoes, it has to be special.

I majored in fashion design in school, and I have always wanted to design my own line of clothing, jewelry, and stuff like that; so this was just a step for me in that direction.

Quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.

I’m tryin’ to build myself bigger than just Ace Hood, I’m tryin’ to build myself as a bigger brand – open up clothing lines, colognes.