Halle Berry Quotes

I think a smart person today realizes that you have to be part of the art films that are done just for the sake of the art.

Career is important, but nothing really supersedes my roles as a mother.

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.

I'll never get married again, and I always hate to say never to anything, but I will never marry again.

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

I've always loved the pomp and circumstance of dressing up; the pagenatry and all of the glamour of Hollywood.

When I got to be about 16,17 I got into a beauty pageant and I was allowed to start playing around with makeup.

My mother helped me identify myself the way the world would identify me. Bloodlines didn't matter as much as how I would be perceived.

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.

Facials are my biggest beauty indulgence. Looking good is about having a good base. It's about taking care of your skin.

I didn't think it was possible at my age, honestly. They call it a geriatric pregnancy.

I've become really comfortable with my sexuality and making no excuses for it anymore.

I archive a lot of my clothes and have them wrapped up and in boxes. I call them 'little tombs' and keep them in a storage space... I would never get rid of the dress I wore on the night I won my Oscar. When I die, someone can have it, but not a minute before!

If you really want to be competitive in today's market you have to be in movies that make money.

When I was a kid, my mother told me that if you could not be a good loser, then there's no way you could be a good winner.

I'm not the girl for superhigh fashion because I don't have the right body. When I want to get dressed up, I'm a Roberto Cavalli girl.

It is very hard to separate one's self from a character. Sometimes the people closest to me have to be very understanding.

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.

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.'

Just to be true to myself, which is why I did this movie. I figured everyone was going to freak out and say, 'Why would you do that after Dorothy Dandridge?' My answer is 'Because I can.' And that feels really good to be comfortable saying that.

Women slave for their hair! It's all about how we compare ourselves to other women, how we size ourselves up.

Self-esteem comes from who you have in your life. How you were raised. What you struggled with as a child.

I'm not sad at all about turning 40.

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.

There's a place in me that can really relate to being the underdog. I'm always fighting to overcome the obstacle. I can really understand what's that about.

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.

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.

My whole life I've had the fear that I was going to be abandoned.

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 used to have to downplay my sexuality because I wanted to be taken so seriously as a thespian and as an artist and as an actor, so I'd play crack heads and down trotting women and disguise myself, and I think as I've gotten older, I become more comfortable with who I really am and all parts of me knowing that my physical self doesn't diminish me in any way or my talent.

To make lips look naturally pink, I put on red lipstick, wipe it off, and then apply clear gloss.

In Monster's Ball I went nude, which was scary, but I took the chance and that's how I like to approach my career.

When I’m rested, I’m at my best.

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.

The first step is clearly defining what it is you're after, because without knowing that, you'll never get it.

Being a mother is probably the most important thing in my life right now.

Motherhood sort of puts things into perspective, and it's bout real life, and life is about people, what we give, what we take, what we share.

Most people I know of that mix have a real ability to be in a room with anyone, black or white.

I love a character that gives me a chance to grow and do something different.

Anytime you put a movie out it's subject to such scrutiny and such criticism.

Beauty is not just physical.

I don't see a white woman. I see a black woman, even though my mother is white. Knowing that has made my life easier, I think.

I carried my Oscar to bed with me. My first and only three-way happened that night.

My partner is a Frenchman, so I have got to smell right.

Although some people will say it's a cliché, I think not having had a father when I was growing up affect me negatively because I didn't have a good role model to follow.

But I just don't think it's an abyss of nothingness [after death] and that we fall off and that our journey stops. I think it's circular and we go and we go and we go. I know that there are civilizations that I think are way more sophisticated than we are and I think more sophisticated civilizations lived before us.

Any time you risk big you often risk losing big. You can win big but you can also lose big, but you have to be willing to take those risks.

I wish all men were like dogs.