“At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.”

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.

I don’t have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn’t love me has to say about me.

I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.

You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.

I can’t deal with actors! I can’t deal with myself. We’re neurotic and miserable… I love doing what I’m doing, but while I’m doing it, I’m miserable.

When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.

Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks.

I think that I’m coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world.

I am not a businessman, I am an artist.

There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

I want to get to the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply.

The artist’s role isn’t to tell people how to feel, but reflect.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent. This is precisely the time when artists go to work.

The artist in me cries out for design.

I am an artist, not a politician.