I try to become more humble and more myself with every year. There was a while when I got famous where I was so confused and my head was spinning.

I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.

We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people.

I assume that if people get to know me, they'll like me. If they don't, it's not my problem.

My major in college was Chinese Studies. It was very intentional.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.

I want my life to effect the balance to the positive.

The Oscars have become such a big deal these days that it's just used as adjective.

When I was 5, my mother threw a party, and a friend and I wrote and performed a play called The Dutch Doll.

There are all kinds of other things I could do, things I would probably like, but only acting would give me emotional fulfillment.

Individuals create themselves through their moral choices. By freely and repeatedly choosing certain sorts of things, an individual shapes their character, and through their character their future.

I don’t want to love you,” I forced out through the thickness in my throat. “God, I hope you do, because you own me completely,” he whispered.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

Your life starts to take shape at 30. You don't have to make excuses for who you are anymore.

Be Black, buy Black, think Black, and all else will take care of itself.

If you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need have you for a tomorrow?

Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water.

Seeking happiness, I passed many travelers headed in the opposite direction, seeking happiness.

The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

I'm your idol, the highest title, Numero Uno, I'm not a Puerto Rican, but I'm speakin so that you know, And understand, I got the gift of speech, And it's a blessin, so listen to the lesson I preach.