Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Parenthood is an adventure.
I love talking with elderly people.
There's no perfect household anywhere.
My voice isn't an instrument I can just hang up on a hook.
Whatever is the scariest is almost always what I end up choosing.
I used to practice Tony speeches in my bathroom with my hairbrush.
I never in a million years thought that my life would unfold the way it has.
The only thing I've ever wanted to do in my entire life is to be on Broadway.
I believe in not whistling backstage and not saying the name of the Scottish play.
I am always so excited to get to know a new audience. My concerts are very personal experiences.
Without theater, I don't think I would have thought I was a smart person or excelled at anything.
I want to thank all the shoulders of the strong and brave and courageous women that I am standing on.
I've been so lucky, with incredible mentors along the way, that now I need to be that for someone else.
I find that I'm just drawn to anything that's going to challenge me as an actress. So, anything that's going to help me grow.
I was a little girl with a pot belly and Afro puffs, hyperactive and overdramatic, and I found the theater and I found my home.
Pedigree matters: if you break your shoulder trying to open a door, it's much harder to play the game once you get in the room.
Some days, I don't recognise my country, and other days, I see people being vocal and passionate, and I think, 'There's my country.'
Music was all over my house, and all over literally my genetic house, and my house in the literal sense. So I kind of couldn't avoid it.
One thing that is constantly on my iPod is India Arie - I like her a lot; I listen to her a lot. I think she is just a spectacular artist.
I choose things that challenge me. I was afraid of the camera - that's why I chose to do 'Private Practice.' It's not like I left the theater.
Theater doesn't bring money in general. That's not why you do it. If you go into theater for money then you've really gone into the wrong business.
When I was doing 'A Raisin in the Sun' with Sean Combs, we began in bed, and he would give me 10 kisses and an 11th for luck before the play began.
...and if you hear something you know, please sing along. No wait - I take that back - you can't sing along - this is about me now - this is my show.
I auditioned for Julliard because I wanted to live in New York, and I wanted to be on Broadway at the time. Julliard seemed like right way to get there.
I think they're an incredible honor. I'm grateful and flattered by them. But I have no control over winning awards - I have no control over any of that.
All you can do is do good work, and do the good work for the sake of doing the good work and your evolution as an artist. That's what's most important to me.
When you become a parent, it blows you open in ways that you never thought possible in terms of a level of love that I know I never thought I could possibly have.
I loved my time doing 'Private Practice' in Los Angeles, and I was quite challenged and excited to learn about the art of television, but I missed being on the stage.
It's easy to spend - especially in this day and age - to spend your time not being in the present. It's very easy to be way ahead. What's tomorrow and the day after that?
Not to get too sort of mystical, but I believe in fate. I believe when roles are presented to me in my life they're for a very specific reason, something for me to learn.
I grew up in a nonprofit theater company in the heartland of central California, so I am very aware of the importance that company had not only on my life but my community.
I feel a connection to many songs that I won't sing because I don't think they are right for me! There is something in my gut that immediately responds. There's no science to it.
The arts are so important not only to society but to ourselves as human beings. It keeps in touch with our own humanity. So access to the arts in any way, shape, or form is vital.
I think for a lot of people that are in performing arts, it's easy to fall into the trap of starting to confuse what's real life and what's not, because to your body it's all real.
The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience's ears. It's not the typical Southern dialect that we're used to.
I certainly miss playing piano, and I really wish I did it more - it's really a very therapeutic thing to do for me. I just need to be home for more than a few minutes to be able to play more, I guess.
Anytime I get the chance to sing or work with Michael John, it is such an incredibly fertile and incredibly creative and safe and encouraging environment - and challenging, too, because he is so collaborative!
'Go Back Home' encompasses not only actual geographic location but also, for me, back home in the worlds of music and theatre, and back home in terms of making albums again. There are lots of meanings to that.
I think it's absolutely essential to encourage creativity. I think we come in as these wide-eyed sponges, ready to create and absorb and evolve, and I think more often than not we are squashed, the older we get.
Maybe it's because my uncle and my parents were always very involved with the civil rights movement, so I just grew up and I was raised that you have to speak out and look out for your fellow man, woman, and child.
There's a lot of traps you can fall into when you are playing someone who existed. If it comes out just as impersonation, that's bad; it has to be an embodiment. You have to live it, not just sound and look like it.
Some sort of creativity is within everybody; I think that's just a part of the human spirit. I think there's no human being on earth who is not creative in some way, because I think it's just a part of our genetic makeup.
I came from a really musical family. I studied classical piano because my grandparents were piano teachers, but started doing musical theater at age nine in Fresno, California, and went to a performing arts high school. That was my life.
The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience's ears. It's not the typical Southern dialect that we're used to. It has a much more percussive rhythm to it.
I'm still an artist who's searching, trying to evolve, an artist who - nine times out of ten - is dissatisfied with her work, and beats herself, and goes out there and tries again and again, and falls on her face and looks for new challenges.
I admire but don't envy people who have children and also have big, wonderful perfect houses. Maybe Martha Stewart could do it; to me those two things aren't compatible, but I know our children will grow up with a feeling that home is a place of comfort.
I'm taking opportunities as they come; I really am. Not to get too sort of mystical, but I believe in fate. I believe when roles are presented to me in my life they're for a very specific reason, something for me to learn. And it's coming at the right time.
When I wanted to audition for a dinner-theater junior troupe in my hometown, I needed to have a piece of musical theater music to sing. I wasn't sure what I wanted to use. My mom and dad suggested that I sing 'Edelweiss' because I knew it from the music box.
Every human being has a dream. I think what's special about the American Dream is that it implies, given everything that's happened with the history of America, that there is the opportunity to make your dream come true. So I think America signifies opportunity.
Rise above the way society is going to see you and society is going to see you at the absolutely bottom of the totem pole because not only are you female, you are Black. Never believe it and never give into that, that that's where you live or that's who you are.