“As an artist, you’ve got to see the mess. That’s what we do. We get a human being, and it’s like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty.”

They say the two most important days in a person’s life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.

They say the two most important days in a person’s life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.

They say the two most important days in a person’s life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.

I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we’re complicated.

Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it.

I want to span different genres. I want to be able to transform. I want to be able to be sexy, and funny, and quirky, and all the other things that I am. And I feel that the best way that I can achieve that is by producing.

That’s why there’s so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.

I am not a glam woman – this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.

Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one’s balance. I think that it’s very damaging.

Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that’s a powerful message in this time of political strife.

[I listen to] “Uptown Funk”, Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress – I listen to that.

Relationships change us and make us grow.

I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.

Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that’s inside of you.

Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

Most of us have all the information we need. What we need is more passion.

I never even graduated college. I never finished learning, as it were, and I have a psychological need to be in a learning environment at all times.

Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a sceptre but a hoe.

I am a firm believer in if you can’t get it the old fashioned way, you don’t need it.

Our nation’s infrastructure needs are tremendous, and they’re growing.

English dialogues are always just what you need and nothing more – like something out of Hemingway. In Italian and in French, dialogues are always theatrical, literary. You can do more with it.

We don’t have to suppose we need oil, or governments, or anything.