I'm glad that I get to take my final walk as the princess of 2012. ...there's nothing wrong with winning an Oscar!

As an actor, I've learned to become a detective. You have to figure out who that person is. If the character is a thief, you have to figure out what makes them a thief. Whatever the prevailing idiosyncrasy is, I have to find it in the script.

The older you get, you always learn more. Sometimes it's a process of learning about yourself and what your journey is. Sometimes the process moves forward at a rapid pace in a short amount of time - or moves backwards. And you're like, "Man, I thought I had made so much progress, and now all of a sudden, I'm 10 steps further behind than when I started."

You never write a speech in advance because if you don't get to use it, you'll be heartbroken.

Any upward movement is movement for us all.

I hate to tell people what they should think 'cause I really have an aversion when people tell me what to think.

Civil rights happened because youth got involved. The youth stood up and helped to break the pattern that their parents had got accustomed to living. The next generation has to take that stand for whatever it is, socially, that they are involved in.