Film school was a privilege I could not afford.

If your dream only includes you, it's too small.

Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.

Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story.

Don't wait for permission to do something creative.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

When you're in your lane, there's no traffic.

We have to find new ways to work without permission, new ways to turn corners and go through doors that are closed off to us to create our own audiences and our own material independently.

I've passed along some advice that Oprah [Winfrey] gave to me: When something bad is happening, it's not happening to you; it's happening for you.

Stop asking, start doing.

If your work is solid, it really doesn't matter what people you know because good work starts to rise to the top.

I want to be the thought that takes your mind off the road and your hand off the steering wheel.

You get lucky when you are well prepared for the opportunity.

I've always been motivated more by negative comments than by positive ones. I know what I do well. Tell me what I don't do well.

I grew up half in South Central and half in the San Fernando valley.

I am not a child, I think for myself. No man can think for me.

And life changes. Maybe just a little, maybe a lot. And at some point, it just isn't worth the fight to fix it.

The British playwright Nina Raine is one of her generation's most promising talents.

Thought paceth like a hoary sage, but imagination hath wings as an eagle.

I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers.

I liked college guys but they could tell I was just a skinny girl.