If you're a boxer, you want to get the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali type. When you're acting, you want to get in with Meryl Streep, and that's what I did.

You can't be hesitant about who you are.

I can be busy for three years and you may not even know what I'm busy doing because you only see me in a few scenes here or there, but I've been working my tail off because there's just not a lot.

Knowing the only way out is education, even if you don't have parents that are extraordinarily wealthy. I understand that I have to be an active participant in [my daughter's] education in order for her to thrive in the world.

When Denzel [Washington] first called me on the phone after we'd just done a reading of the film ["Fences"]. He said, "Oh Viola it was so good, wasn't it?! I'm gonna tell Russell [Hornsby] to lose a little bit of weight and..." I was just sitting there thinking, why is he calling me? And I told him, "Denzel don't you tell me to lose weight!" He said, "I'm not telling you to lose weight! I can't believe you would say that."

I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.

I just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, "Do you know how fabulous you are?"