Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.

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

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.

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.

When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive.

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

You can't be hesitant about who you are.

Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.

I don’t want anyone putting any limits on me.

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.

All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.

Truth is neither in the scripture nor in the words of prophets. It is in your heart, feel it, discover it and expand with it.

The ability to make yourself do what needs to be done at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner – irrespective of your feelings – marks the true test of self-discipline.

You behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind.

I am publicly apolitical.

While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.

Ronald Reagan knew who he was. Barack Obama is still working through that equation politically.

Doubt means you're human - congratulations! It's natural to have these feelings, and if anything makes you humble, just don't be ruled by those emotions.

I am allergic to domestic goddesses. Men would prefer a woman with a dirty mind to a clean house.

I don't like gossip stories. Facts are okay. But when gossips begin making items, that's something else again.

When you're on a show for five years, everyone becomes friends. It's great.