“I think that when you smell good, you feel good. You know how when you’re in a room and someone else smells good, you’re like, ‘Where is that?’”

I can’t believe we’re being paid to live in New York.

Fragrance is a bit of a selfish gift because it’s comforting when you’re near someone and you recognize their smell.

My mom taught me this really great beauty tip. She used to put oil or mayonnaise on the bottom half of her hair before she would shower.

In high school, there are so many cliques. You’re never safe.

I can read a four-page scene once and have it memorized. It’s a skill you learn in school: disposable cramming.

It’s difficult to wear such high Louboutins and also freestyle rap.

I need good friends who can say, ‘I love you to death, but you look terrible in that, and you need to change right now.’

Often you see people on the red carpet with tight up-dos, but that makes me feel stiff.

When I moved to New York, I started switching fragrances. Between different seasons I would change fragrance, or if I was going out for a big fancy night versus going out in the daytime. But I also found that I was changing and growing so much.

People gossip. People are insecure, so they talk about other people so that they won’t be talked about.

I always love somebody who makes me laugh, who’s fun to be with.

Family is at the heart of everything I do.

I just want Beyonce to be the mother of my children.

I’ve never been a big fan of gossip. Being a victim of it, I knew how much it hurt.

I’m always the person who’s taking everyone else’s kid and putting them on my hip, so I’ve kinda always been a mama.

I went straight from high school to ‘Gossip Girl,’ and both were very structured, scheduled environments, so I never had freedom to explore and carve my own path.

No man knows till he experiences it, what it is like to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the woman he loves.

I feel like I can get a good feel for people.

I pray for you every night. You’ve taught me to feel confident in myself, believe in myself that I can do it when I didn’t think I could do it.

I have my privileges, but I do feel like at every turn there is such resistance.

Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there’s a lot of work to be done.

There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people.

Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature’s profligate generosity.

My feet are like gnarled old tree branches.