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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.

Tracee Ellis Ross

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

Awakening Choice Day Gratitude Joy Kindness Peace
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.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Audience Drive Myself Photography Realize
I’m extremely blessed to have the extraordinary mother that I have, and I don’t mean Diana Ross, I mean the mother. My mom paved a road that didn’t exist, as did Oprah.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Blessing Empowerment Existence Mom Woman
[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.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Writing
I was shy, but it came out in a big personality. My turning point was when I let my hair go naturally and I got contact lenses. I am really blind, by the way. I have these big eyes that don’t work!
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Appearance Blind Eyes Myself Point Way Work
I’ve always been a curious thinker. And now, as an adult, I can articulate it.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Adult Curiosity Myself Thinking
It was when I realized I needed to stop trying to be somebody else and be myself, that I actually started to own, accept and love what I had.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Acceptance Myself Need Start Stop
My mom would leave her job, and there would be throngs of people screaming and banging on our car. I come from a very private family, but I was born into a public family.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Born Family Leave Myself People Scream
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.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Explore Funny Sharp Topic Weight
Throughout high school, I was obsessed with magazines. I used to just comb through them and plaster things on my wall.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Magazine Myself Obsession Wall
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.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Mom Morning Myself Record Rule Sleep
There is a way to be a woman, ask for what we deserve and be able to negotiate.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Deserve Negotiate Way Woman
I sometimes think to myself, you’re not going to meet a new friend of any kind at home in front of the TV with your DVR. As much as it’s great, and there are so many good shows on TV, and I have great books that I’m reading, get out and interact with people.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Home Interact Kind Myself Reading Thinking
After college, I shot a pilot for a show on Lifetime, which was basically House of Style for a TV lover. I think I got paid $1,500, and I was like, “Mom, I’m moving out! I made it!” I did two seasons of that, but I felt like a talking head and wanted to do more.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

College Lover Myself Paid Season Thinking
One of the things I’ve realized is how portable God is. No really, He’s everywhere!
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

God Oneself Realize Thinking
Sometime in my second year at Brown [University], I took an acting class. And the lightbulb went off for me. I fell in love with it. I realized that everything I was afraid of about myself, all my fears, could be used in that world.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Acting Class Fall Fear Love Myself Time World
I’m a farmer’s market girl, so if you go and get beautiful, fresh fruit, that’s local, and it hasn’t been frozen yet, it’s pretty fantastic.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Beautiful Fantastic Girl Market Myself
Self-care of all kinds is a huge part of my life. I really encourage other women and other people to really put self-care – and that includes the beauty regime, how you eat, all of that – into your body.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Body Care Encourage Kind Yourself
When you feel happy, you look beautiful.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Happiness Yourself
Differences in experience, points of view and opinions aren’t what pulls us apart. It’s what pulls us together.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Difference Experience Ourselves Point Togetherness View
I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Day Inspirational Learning Myself Terrify
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.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Choice Cover Fashion Myself Skin
Here is my wish and my desire and my pledge as well: that we remember our true nature and our womanhood. That we own and know that we are more than our bodies and yet our bodies are these sacred, beautiful, rhythmic houses for us.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Beautiful Desire Home Ourselves Pledge Remember Sacred
We all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Need Ourselves See Woman
I buy what makes my heart sing. So, it’s not that I follow one specific track. It’s sort of what I like. I love colors. I love unique pieces. I love vintage clothing.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Follow Heart Myself Pieces Sing Specific Track
When I’m not working, I spend a lot of time on my hair. When it’s time for my hair to get some rest, I either wear it in a ponytail, bun or my favorite “milkmaid” braid.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Hairs Myself Style Time Work
Just embrace your hair! I really feel like I am not an advocate for people doing what I do. I’m an advocate for people discovering and finding what works for them.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS

Embrace Finding Hairs People Work

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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