“One lady told me that before she saw ‘Sounder’ she didn’t believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people.”

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.

I have learned not to allow rejection to move me.

Age is just a number. Life and aging are the greatest gifts that we could possibly ever have.

The gratification comes, for me, in the doing of it. And once I’ve done it, I can’t do anything about it if it’s good or if it’s bad.

I didn’t want to be an actress; I never thought of being an actress because, as children, there were three of us – I was the middle child – and we spent our time in church from Sunday morning to Saturday night.

One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don’t want anybody to walk ahead of me, and I don’t want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that’s how I feel about equal rights.

You never know what motivates you.

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there’s nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.

In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform.

Unless a piece really said something, I had no interest in it. I have got to know that I have served some purpose here.

Now, I am perfectly willing to just enjoy my career by choosing roles simply because I consider them to be a challenge and doing the best possible job I can.

My mother was an introvert and quite religious. And we were brought up in the church. And when she learned that I wanted to act, she simply said: ‘You cannot live here and do that.’

When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can’t live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that’s the juice that kept me going.

How do you project a character if you don’t have a sense of where she is from? I’ve always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces.

We have to support our own films. If we don’t, how can we expect others to support them?

I feel so guilty about the state of young people today. And I say that because our generation fought for everything. We fought to sit down at a counter, to sit on a bus. They were left with nothing to fight for.

When I’m picking songs for an album I always want a song that I can relate to and that I have experienced. There’s nothing worse than watching an artist try and sell a song that isn’t believable coming from them.

Attitude is a choice. Think positive thoughts daily. Believe in yourself.

Whatever you do, be it small, big; have a goal and believe in yourself.

I’m grateful for believing in a religion that can naturally adapt to changing times yet uphold timeless values and principles.

I was the youngest child and really spoiled. I loved to play make-believe. I loved pretending to be all kinds of different people and it just seemed natural that I would go into acting.

What a shame – how the taste of you could rot even the cedar and cypress. How you fooled the redwood into believing narcissus’ pond was made for two.

I’m going where my heart will take me, I’ve got faith to believe I can do anything I’ve got strength of the soul, And no one’s gonna bend or break me, I can reach any star I’ve got faith I’ve got faith, Faith of the heart.

The Universe totally supports every thought I choose to think and to believe. I have unlimited choices about what I think. I choose balance, harmony, and peace, and I express it in my life.