We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.

---

I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.

---

Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.

---

When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.

---

Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.

---

There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair.

---

Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.

---

You have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it. When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life.

---

I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent

---

Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.

---