People always ask me, 'You have so much confidence. Where did that come from?'. It came from me. One day I decided that I was beautiful, and so I carried out my life as if I was a beautiful girl. I wear colors that I really like, I wear makeup that makes me feel pretty, and it really helps. It doesn't have anything to do with how the world perceives you. What matters is what you see.

I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don't like myself, there's no reason to even live the life.

I used to watch 'Coming to America' every day after school. I have full-on long-running inside jokes with friends and family about different scenes in that movie alone. Also, my brother and I loved 'The Golden Child,' so, yeah: I was a huge fan of Eddie Murphy growing up.

If they hadn’t tried to break me down, I wouldn’t know that I’m unbreakable.

When it's time to film and to actually take on the role of Precious, I felt an immense responsibility to do it justice.

Personally, it’s rude. You got three kids with the lady, she just did 17 years for you and you’re not gonna leave your...whatever!

When I was listening in on the phone call where Andre Leon Talley was saying that he was going to get my fat, black ass on the cover of a magazine. I think that - you know, Andre Leon Talley is fat and black. And it hurt my feelings. It hurt my feelings. But it also was a lesson in this is what they think, and this is what they will always think. And there's no way of being too talented or too pretty or too confident around it. People will still have their opinions.