If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.

I think I am at my best when my hair is short. It's easier to take care of and more of who I am. Women are conditioned to think we need long hair.

If you set out to do something and you give it your all and it doesn't work out, be willing to modify your goal slightly. Have the ability to look in another direction. A small shift could guide you to the real purposes of your life.

I no longer scramble blindly through hardship. I no longer emerge from a bad time feeling relieved just to have survived. Instead of despairing, I try to find the lesson within the experience.

We've become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth and, frankly, I'm really saddened by the way women mutilate their faces today in search of that.

Blackness is a state of mind and I identify with the black community. Mainly, because I realized, early on, when I walk into a room, people see a black woman, they don't see a white women. So out of that reason alone, I identify more with the black community.

I chose a sunflower because when darkness descends they close up to regenerate. But I really wish I'd never had the tattoo in the first place. Clean, clear skin is always better.