Viola Davis

The predator wants your silence. It feeds their power, entitlement, and they want it to feed your shame.

It feels like my hard work has paid off, but at the same time, I still have the impostor, you know, syndrome. I still feel like I'm going to wake up, and everybody's going to see me for the hack I am.

Because I grew up in such tight spaces, I don't get manicures, pedicures. I'm not into cars, but I am into a fabulous house. I wanted the spiral staircase, clean sheets on the bed, to be able to take a shower.

Vanity destroys your work. That's the one thing you have to let go of as an actor. I don't care how sexy or beautiful any woman is. At the end of the day, she has to take her makeup off. At the end of the day, she's more than just pretty.

You have to dare to make a choice that may be considered unorthodox in a role, but when you're working as if there are tons of people watching you, that's not necessarily a good thing.

It made me realize again how complicated being a mother is. You have 50 million heartbreaking moments, and 100 million beautiful, joyous ones.

I tell my daughter every morning, 'Now, what are the two most important parts of you?' And she says, 'My head and my heart.' Because that's what I've learned in the foxhole: What gets you through life is strength of character and strength of spirit and love.

I just want different narratives for people of color, especially women of color. I just want something that's different. I don't want us to be put in a box. I want it to be kind of a redefinition of who were are. If I can even achieve that in a tiny way, I'll be good. I'll be good.

Acting came from growing up in dysfunction. I mean, a lot of great times, but a lot of dysfunction.

When you see a parent pass, and you literally are there, and you're sitting at that deathbed, man, and you have to tell them to go, it defines life for what it really is.

So many women characters are extensions of male fantasy.

I worked in television; I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard.

The only picture I have of my childhood is the picture of me in kindergarten. I have this expression on my face - it's not a smile, it's not a frown. I swear to you, that's the girl who wakes up in the morning and who looks around her house and her life saying, 'I cannot believe how God has blessed me.'

Egos are an occupational hazard in acting, but I don't have much of one, and my husband doesn't have much of one, so it's good.

My grandmom worked as a maid for most of her life, and she worked in the tobacco and the cotton fields, whatever she could get.

It became motivation as opposed to something else - the thing about poverty is that it starts affecting your mind and your spirit because people don't see you. I chose from a very young age that I didn't want that for my life. And it very much has helped me appreciate and value the things that are in my life now because I never had it.

To the predators... Weinstein, the stranger, the relative, the boyfriend... I say to you, 'You can choose your sin but you don't get to choose the consequences.' To the victims... I see you. I believe you... and I'm listening.

We didn't have money all the time to do laundry. A lot of the time, we didn't have soap or hot water. We were smart kids academically, but we'd go to school smelling.

I did everything to get food. I have stolen for food. I have jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food. I have befriended people in the neighborhood who I knew had mothers who cooked three meals a day for food, and I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame.

You're only reduced to a cliche if you don't humanize a character.

That's always the biggest surprise when people meet me: how buoyant I am and how fun and light I am.