I would wear pajamas to work every day if it were up to me.
You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.
The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.
Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote, our right to choose, affordable quality education, equal pay, access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.
I choose to feel optimistic, because I don't think I could get out of bed if I didn't.
When you have things that are very important to you in life, when there are things you want to do and be - that takes work. It takes work to show up for your own story and show up for the dream and vision you have for yourself.
I think sometimes in life we want to ignore the problems of society and just think about the good. I believe in positive thinking and affirmative living, I also think it's really important to remember all of our disenfranchised members of society.
So many struggled so that all of us could have a voice in this great democracy and live up to the first three words of our constitution: We the people. I love that phrase so much. Throughout our country's history, we've expanded the meaning of that phrase to include more and more of us. That's what it means to move forward.
That's what acting is - it's about... having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.
I think generalizations of any sort are dangerous. I'll say, if that is the case - right now it's an American issue.
I don't talk about my personal life in the press; that's how I kept my wedding a secret.
You know what's funny is that I have this ongoing relationship with the city of Washington D.C. I went to George Washington University, and my nickname was K-Dub - based on G-Dub - and I'm now on the board of trustees at George Washington University.
I'm here not just as an actress but as a woman, an African-American, a granddaughter of Ellis Island immigrants, a person who could not have afforded college without the help of student loans and as one of millions of volunteers working to re-elect President Obama!
I think every girl should have a tailor in her phone. It's part of why we beat ourselves up, or why shopping is so frustrating and hard: we have this assumption that when you take something off the rack, it will fit you.
I don't think I'm even close to fulfilling my potential. And I think also that, unlike a pianist or a flutist, an actor has an instrument that is constantly changing.
I always prided myself on the fact that I could live out of milk crates forever. It was kind of my way of detaching from materialism.
I didn't grow up thinking I was pretty; there was always a prettier girl than me. So I learned to be smart and tried to be funny and develop the inside of me, because I felt like that's what I had.
I don't want to not be African. The goal is to live in a world where my race doesn't limit my access, where I can see myself represented in the highest level of society without any limitation.
You see the transformation that the arts have on young people. It changes their lives for the better. That's where my engagement is.
I think most people, when they think about the Black Panther Party, they think in very abstract, caricatured terms. They think about black fists in the air, but they don't think about the actual people, and the families, and the relationships.
