Tracee Ellis Ross Quotes

I hope they look at me and think, 'That lady looks like she accepts herself'.

Wisdom means to choose now what will make sense later.

I don't have the luxury of not going to work when I don't feel up to it. Most people don't. On those days, I acknowledge I am feeling f-cking crappy, and I'm not at my best, and I still want to or need to keep walking forward. I have to do some of my best work on my worst days. I have to look pretty even when I don't feel pretty. There's a way to hold both things.

I don't really talk about my personal life. It's a strange and funny and weird thing. Sometimes you have a conversation with someone and the paparazzi snaps a picture of you and people decide you're dating. If I try to answer everything people say, I would be up all night.

Differences in experience, points of view and opinions aren't what pulls us apart. It's what pulls us together.

I buy what makes my heart sing. So, it's not that I follow one specific track. It's sort of what I like. I love colors. I love unique pieces. I love vintage clothing.

My generation is one of the first generations of "choiceful" women - women who have actually had the choice of how they architect their lives - and I don't think shame should have any place in that. But as that generation, you get cuts and bruises.

Sometime in my second year at Brown [University], I took an acting class. And the lightbulb went off for me. I fell in love with it. I realized that everything I was afraid of about myself, all my fears, could be used in that world.

I just want to say this. I love being a woman. I love playing a woman. I love being a whole and full woman. I am more than my parts, and we all are. And we all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing. We are full and beautiful women, and let us live in that.

Just embrace your hair! I really feel like I am not an advocate for people doing what I do. I'm an advocate for people discovering and finding what works for them.

Nothing goes to windward like a 747.

I felt like it was a courageous show [Black-ish] from the beginning. We are a black family - we're not a family that happens to be black. But the show is not even about us being black. The show is about us being a family. That is groundbreaking - on TV, the black characters either happen to be black or they're the "black character," where everything they say is about being black. I think that's the genius.

I have to take some time to dream some new dreams. I feel like there's a treasure hunt in front of me. A treasure hunt that is speckled with and seeded by a deep-rooted wild freedom.

I was spoiled when I worked in the magazine world. Fashion closets are heaven and I seem to model my organization after a fashion closet.

This is a couple that actually loves, respects & appreciates each other.

My mom would leave her job, and there would be throngs of people screaming and banging on our car. I come from a very private family, but I was born into a public family.

One of the things I've realized is how portable God is. No really, He's everywhere!

I never heard my mom say, "Not now, I'm busy." But I did have extraordinary experiences that I'm very aware were extraordinary. I mean, I traveled Europe before I was 12 years old, had been to the White House numerous times. Andy Warhol photographed me; Michael Jackson called our house.

After college, I shot a pilot for a show on Lifetime, which was basically House of Style for a TV lover. I think I got paid $1,500, and I was like, "Mom, I'm moving out! I made it!" I did two seasons of that, but I felt like a talking head and wanted to do more.

I was shy, but it came out in a big personality. My turning point was when I let my hair go naturally and I got contact lenses. I am really blind, by the way. I have these big eyes that don’t work!

I'm a really big believer in self care. One of the ways I nourish my soul is I eat the way I live my life - joyfully.

In some of the darkest and hardest moments, there is always a part of me that is okay. And I can always access that part of me.

Black-ish is really a show about an American family and these are some of the topics that come up - for all of us, in different ways - and we get to see how this family is walking through it.

I think television is doing a better job than films in terms of representing people, but television is still not diverse.

I've always been a curious thinker. And now, as an adult, I can articulate it.

There is a way to be a woman, ask for what we deserve and be able to negotiate.

We all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing.

I wanted Bow's hair and makeup and clothing to look like a woman who has four children, a career, and a full life. For example, she won't wear eyeshadow unless she's going out. Because it takes a lot of time to put eyeshadow on. She's a woman who has style, but it's all about functionality - she grabs stuff from her closet.

When you feel happy, you look beautiful.

My mom helped me. I was very shy growing up, but my shyness sort of manifested in a big personality.

My bathroom is filled with hair and makeup stuff and I play with it all the time. What the real lesson is, is that you can own your own sense of beauty. It doesn't have to be something you get from somewhere else.

I was very shy growing up. My shyness manifested as a big personality, as opposed to the wallflower personality. It's been a journey getting comfortable in my skin. I've worked on trying to find the authentic balance between the bravado of my personality that was sort of a defense and the truth within my bigness.

This woman [Bow] was not simply a reflection of who her husband was. She was her own whole self. And even if we weren't exploring life through her eyes, when we did see her it was clear that she had a full life.

I like to choose compassion over judgment and curiosity over fear.

I think our culture promotes fear and shame.

And it [acting] was exciting to me. And scary.

Here is my wish and my desire and my pledge as well: that we remember our true nature and our womanhood. That we own and know that we are more than our bodies and yet our bodies are these sacred, beautiful, rhythmic houses for us.

The clothing, the makeup, the freedom of expression in [the models'] bodies. It was Linda and Christy and Naomi at the time. So I modeled before college.

I doubted Black-ish , and I'll tell you why. Because it doesn't matter if a writer wrote it for you. He could've written it with you in mind. But TV is a collaborative art. It involves producers, networks, studios, and many people signing off on you. And a lot of times there are deals in place - actors with studios that they're looking for shows for.

Sometimes I feel like art is supposed to mirror life, but strangely it's as if art is trying to catch up to life, to a certain extent?

I was cast in a movie [originally] called Mr. Spreckman's Boat, starring Marcia Gay Harden and Jennifer Connelly. I felt like an "actress." Both of them have won Oscars - maybe that means I might one day.

I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.

It would drive the photographers crazy because I would giggle and tell jokes. I was gregarious, and looking back, I realize I had a captive audience.

Self-care of all kinds is a huge part of my life. I really encourage other women and other people to really put self-care - and that includes the beauty regime, how you eat, all of that - into your body.

Someone asked me recently, "Do you get sick of people asking you about your hair?" And the reason I don't is because I actually feel like you could chronicle my journey of self-acceptance through my journey with my hair. It's a badge of something bigger.

I want to be awake. I want to choose kindness, live & let live. I want joy, gratitude, and peace today.

When I'm not working, I spend a lot of time on my hair. When it's time for my hair to get some rest, I either wear it in a ponytail, bun or my favorite "milkmaid" braid.

Throughout high school, I was obsessed with magazines. I used to just comb through them and plaster things on my wall.