By the time I left school, I had a lot of tenacity.

I have to live for me. I have to do what I need to do for me, and I have stopped concerning myself with what people say.

Throughout my career I have been talked out of things I wanted to do, and when I look back, I think I should have followed my instincts.

My mother never wanted me to focus on my physical self. She always said that beauty is what you do.

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.

You have to get the audience invested even if you're doing something that they think is dumb, it's kind of what these movies are all about.

I am a hopeless romantic. And I won't stop till I get it right. I don't think I'm unlike a lot of people. I am just someone who is trying to find that mate, and I think it's a really hard thing to do. And I'm not willing to stay somewhere where I am really not happy. And I am not willing to pretend I am for the kid's sake or so that I don't have to go through another public humiliation.