“Secular artists see themselves with performance; they are more self involved, presentational.”

Sometimes in the black culture, being raised as an independent woman is misconstrued as someone who doesn’t need a man. I think that’s wrong. I think we all need someone.

I went back and researched the history of gospel; where it came from, slavery times, communicating with each other without their master knowing what they are saying, and that gospel artists view themselves differently.

When I set goals, they’re more tangible than becoming famous. You don’t build a company or a foundation for fame.

I never dealt with fame. It was never a goal of mine to become famous.

Colloquialism is the toughest part of what we do, as foreign actors, because there are certain sayings that you guys have that absolutely don’t make any sense.

I know I can act and it doesn’t matter where you come from.

The whole time I was modeling, I had a place in Paris, and a place in New York, and I was really single.

Yet I wanted to have children, and I knew that was my purpose, but I wasn’t going to settle.

I knew immediately that she was going to be in my life forever. I didn’t know in what capacity, but I knew that I had found someone who was going to be close to me for a long time. We became great friends fast.

We have relationships and know the exact outcome with that person because we don’t deal with ourselves and don’t deal with our issues and end up being attracted to the same person or the person is attracted to our energy.

When you work as actors in this business, you spend a lot of time apart. That’s why a lot of marriages fail. It’s not because of Hollywood, it’s because you don’t spend time together.

My love for you is past the mind, beyond my heart, and into my soul.

I’m the same person. I don’t put on a face. I’m the same guy every time you see me.

I don’t need a gym. You can do a lot without the gym, so that’s what I’ve chosen to do.

Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it’s the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.

I had always thought of Egypt as a rather secular country. And I think it is, but people are quite observant of the strictures of Ramadan.

I’ve never really separated out the spiritual and the secular.

Which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.

We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious – but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance.

This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made