A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots,' and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not.

Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.

I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators "the haute couture of language."

Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.