And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned.

With success comes more responsibility, a larger size of existence, which is uncomfortable.

I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

I never, in my wildest dreams, could I have thought that the first role I get out of school would lead to an Oscar nomination.

It's so much more fun to do the work than to talk about it. I will have to admit that. Everybody gets to decide how they feel, and what to take away by themselves, and that's what you hope for. That people will take away different things and have different experiences from the work we do as actors. So I don't like to prescribe how to feel about the work I do.

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

No matter where you're from, your dreams are valid.