In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can't seem to get there no how. I can't seem to get over that line.

You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.

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."

The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you.

I think that what happens so often on screen is high-stake moments tends to look too pretty. And I just don't think it's honest.

Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.

That's how I digest it, 'cause I can press the fast-forward button and I know that I'm gonna have to continue to be an actor, continue to make choices, continue to perform in a show every week.