I'm realizing, you don't need to change anything about yourself. This is who you are, and it's okay. That's daring.

If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka.

Ive heard of nothing coming from nothing, but Ive never heard of absolutely nothing coming from hard work.

I think there's something really thrilling to having to get people laughing about something and then when you have them in that comfort space, you can drop the weight into the texture of the story.

It's exciting to watch people do and write and say what they feel like doing, writing and saying.

My only want and wish, really, was to tell a good story. I wanted to do good work, tell a good story, and give the character a voice. Those were my only expectations.

I kept hiding my smile in pictures throughout middle school and most of high school until picture day came my senior year.

Faith is a big thing we explore.

I love De la Renta. I love CoSTUME National; I think they're just incredible. And I love Marc Jacobs, too - they're also great, just a great brand.

In performance, you dont always feel that sort of family bond right off the top. It sort of develops and grows over time.

I loved Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi. Its about a first-generation African family living in America that has to return home to Nigeria when their estranged father passes away.

The false religion of lust is baser than the false religion of mother-love or patriotism or art: but lust is less likely to be made into a religion.

Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our "beauty" so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.

It’s not a matter of how small you are. Still you are important

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden too can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.

My work comes first, reasons for it follow.

People still stereotype all day long. But if you forget your own age, you'll get so focused on the business that you become ultra-confident and people will forget to question how old you are.

I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.

Every adversity contains, at the same time, a seed of equivalent opportunity!

I understand the big food companies are developing a tearless onion. I think they can do it - after all, they've already given us tasteless bread.

A bass should sound like a bass with the thump of the finger against the wood, like it began with stand up.