My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.

No matter where you're from, your dreams are valid.

What I've learned from myself is that I don't have to be anybody else. Myself is good enough.

You can't eat beauty, it doesn't sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion, for yourself and those around you. That kind of beauty inflamed the heart and merchants the soul.

You fail, and then what? Life goes on. It's only when you risk failure that you discover things.

I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.

There is no shame in black beauty.

You have to allow for the impossible to be possible.

To be human is to seek perfection, and find joy in never attaining it.

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

A man can make up his mind quickly when he has only a little to make up.

Woman is the masterpiece.

Where do you want it?

Things certainly aren't the way you imagine them when you're a kid and dreaming big dreams about what your life as a grown-up will look like.

The more you say, the less people remember.

The Greeks, with their truly healthy culture, have once and for all justified philosophy simply by having engaged in it, and having engaged in it more fully than any other people.

You never realize what the aftereffect of your activities, however in the event that you don't do anything, obviously there will be no outcome.

Having loving and supporting parents didn't make me feel any better about the possibility of seeing my personal life splashed across newspapers and tabloids.

America has receded from the world. Today our friends and allies don't trust us. And our enemies don't fear us. I think we should get back, number one, to American leadership in the world.

Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.