During really difficult times in my life when I start questioning why I am struggling with something, I often turn to books to understand myself better.

I always had to prove myself through my actions. Be a cheerleader. Be class president. Be the editor of the newspaper.

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.

I never put myself in that box of you're an Oscar winner so you can only do this or that. That's one award, one night, and it does not define my career or it does not define me as an artist. I never wanted to get put in that Oscar box because that's a lonely place to be.

What's hardest for me to swallow is when there is a love story, say, with a really high-profile male star and there's no reason I can't play the part. They say, 'Oh, we love Halle, we just don't want to go black with this part.'

As a woman, when you embrace where you are in life, then I think the struggle [life] isn't so hard. If you're 42 and still think you're an ingenue, then you've got a problem.

I learned up less is more.The makeup used to wear me and now I wear the makeup.