“The pain is always bringing me a lesson. If I listen to the lesson when the pain is manageable, the pain won’t get gargantuan and flatten me entirely, because I will have received the message at the center.”

There are a lot of women who feel that they have done all the work in their relationship only for someone else to step in and take the love and credit for it.

I have to meditate before I go to bed, always. I have to let the day go and let the eternal in.

I have to welcome the pain like I welcome the joy.

Love is a true unconditional space to me. To love someone or to be loved is to be seen, and I think, gosh, as humans, all we want is to be seen, to be heard, right? To be valued. To be respected. But mostly just to be held in a safe, unconditional space.

I think true beauty is everywhere. Be it. See it. Notice it. Love it. Be grateful for it. Marvel at it. It’s everywhere. It’s all around us all the time.

It’s a lot of fun to just say to people, proudly, ‘I get to play the First Lady.’ It’s just fun to say.

Absolutely undermining my confidence in every moment. Bad tape in my head all the time.

My dad used to say, ‘Just be yourself and you’ll be fine,’ but it’s really, really true.

I used to be so hard on myself. So hard on myself. Just my own worst critic to the nth degree.

The more I resist anything, the stronger it gets.

I feel it is a blessing, a duty, an honor, that we give the love that we have, and we share the lives that we have with our fullest heart.

There’s a lot of life on the planet that needs love, wants love, deserves love, in whatever capacity we are able.

I miss singing. I did Broadway forever.

I think you choose how you walk through this life. I think if you choose to participate in a paradigm that is looks-based, if you’re an actor, then it can be empowering in some ways, and it can be really limiting in some ways in terms of time and longevity.

If I’m feeling hurt, sad, lonely, depressed, and then I shame myself for feeling that, then that’s a black hole for me. I really have worked a lot to meet pain with both gratitude and gentleness.

I get a lot of work done in my dreams and I don’t want to take anybody else’s work with me.

My love is bigger than a Cadillac, I try to show you, but you drive me back.

You always face a bunch of hands trying to stop you from working.

There’s always one more way to do things and that’s your way, and you have a right to try it at least once.

Seriously, I’ve just realized that almost everyone is a fraud, so I try not to feel too bad about it.

You must purge yourself before finding faults in others. When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake. This is the way to take judgment and to turn it into improvement.

Life’s philosophy, hm… I just say, ‘Do what you do and have fun doing it and try not to be too miserable.’

It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal.

Knowing that “me” is inextricably linked to blackness, [I try to enjoy] the process of expanding beyond the expected boundaries set by existing culture, norms and media.