You don't want the white men to be written in a three-dimensional way but the black men, not. I mean, it's just about [how] scripts should always reflect real human beings. So that's what I look for.

It's fascinating how much of our sense of attractiveness and feminine identity is bound up in our hair.

Perfect is very boring, and if you happen to have a different look, that's a celebration of human nature, I think. If we were all symmetrical and perfect, life would be very dull.

I was a daydreamer as a kid. I want to act because of whatever artistic bone is in my body. I want to explore what it is to be alive. I just want to make good sh-t.

I know I'm not a conventional beauty. You can read a lot of painful things on the Internet, which criticise you aesthetically - but as far as I'm concerned, that's not what an actress is.

I know people think that acting is not quite the occupation of grown-ups, but it is actually the ultimate learning process: You get a multitude of experiences, all for the price of one life.

I’ve always been a black sheep. That’s a hard thing to be until you find your calling in life. I was bullied a lot at school, probably because I was perceived to be different from everyone else.

I love going out of my comfort zone—I live to go out of my comfort zone. Obviously, you have quieter years than others—you don’t go jumping out of a plane every day.

Every role affects an actor a little bit. There's always a little chunk of a character that stays left over in your heart.

You can be a good human being and just be shrewd.

I feel like I've really earnt my stripes - I feel ready to play a lead. I would just love to prove I'm good enough to carry a project.

When a leader has an attitude of gratitude, it can create great differences in the lives of others.

That's a cute sentence: the years to come. Why are you so sure they're coming?

Sometimes, all you need to do is pull back a little to protect your heart, not turn your back entirely.

I guess if everybody went crazy together nobody would notice.

They've named the well after you." "How did they know my name?" "They don't. They invented one.

It is cynicism and fear that freeze life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free.

There is nothing as unreal as life.

How happy he who can still hope to lift himself from this sea of error! What we know not, that we are anxious to possess, and cannot use what we know.

Do Americans want the government to micromanage every aspect of our lives? President Ronald Reagan certainly didn't.

Most people don't have the money to spend on advertising to create awareness among readers, nor do they have the contacts at newspapers or magazines to get their books reviewed.