Children should have a balanced start in life: a mother and a father. I think that's the only reason to get married.

When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch - what make you go beyond the norm.

I don't condemn anyone for making their choices. If someone chooses those roles, fine. But not for me. When someone stops me and says, You're the reason I became an actress, that lets me know I made the right decision

One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights.

The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.

I was in California when this journalist made a blanket statement about the fact that she did not think that black men and women had the kind of love relationship that Rebecca and Nathan had in Sounder.