I feel mushy these days when I think about art and artists and the work that lies ahead for us. There's good work to be done and there's joy to be found in it, I think.

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.

The outside is the only place we can truly be inside the world.

Two years could change so much under the facade of changing nothing at all.

Be aware of your intrinsic energies - that is what you are made of!- Ramana Pemmaraju

I don't tear down. I prefer to build up.

I look for things that are going to challenge me as an actor.

When something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

I'm not exactly ambitious as much as I have a very good realization of what I am and what I am capable of.

Beautiful I would never be. Striking, that I could manage.

There are a lot of idiot fund managers out there who add no value to the process at all.

I've had an unhappy life, thank God.