When we were growing up, we were so poor that our heritage was the only thing we had. Mama would say, 'Kids, pour more water in the soup. Better days are coming.'

People say that to me and I think what unites all my characters is that they are hurt; it's most accurate to say I play characters that are hurt but are responding to their environment.

Self care isn't selfish. It's self esteem.

The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at and marketed to us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted.

And of course there's so much music in and around our family. I had a piano during Christmas because it's obviously useful through the season. There are so many people, songwriters, who are around.

I have a lot of love to give, and when I give that love and others are able to receive it and show me their vulnerability, I believe that God inhabits that space, which means I basically hang out with God a lot, and that's why I feel hopeful.

Cross-generational sex is the phenomenon in which young girls are given material goods in exchange for sex. All girls are vulnerable to it, particularly orphans.