This business is all about being seen, and the more people see you the better.

I was a shy little girl, nothing like what I am now.

Singing was the big focus and outlet for me.

Chick Corea was a great influence on me, musically, as I was growing up.

I face every project the same way - do it right and give 110%. 100% isn't good enough.

My family is very theatrical.

When I was five years old I knew I wanted to act.

I have to approach my life in this way so I can do what I need to do, and do it very well.

I hated stand-up.

Watched Star Wars in 77 and that's when I got into watching films. I was just blown away by it.

It's all about humanity, humility, and integrity.

People who don't use the tools given to them only injure themselves.

I've played piano and guitar when I was younger.

My driving force is spirituality.

I fit into the quirky, character class type of actor.

My older sister Nikki went to Hampton music school in Virginia, then to another school later in New York.

So many comics have such low self-esteem.

There is a class system in acting just like in anything else. Black females fall in a category below black male actors.

And I used to listen to a lot of jazz.

We always performed for our church, but we also just performed whenever the family got together.

I'm not the classic type - fair skin, very beautiful women of a classic type, I'm talking about now.

Voice is my instrument.

If you're going to do something, make it right and make it as good as you can. Don't waste anybody's time, especially your own.

I got an early education from television.

This business is all about being seen, and the more people see you the better.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.

For me, being in front of the camera and training go hand in hand.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.

Being injured is something that happens in this sport. Anybody who gets into it understands that.

PR is extremely important, and being able to use it in the right way means everything. You have to market your success.

Being ill like this combines shock - this time I will die - with a pain and agony that are unfamiliar, that wrench me out of myself.