The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a gr...
I had a great deal of confidence when I graduated from Berkeley. I had almost none when I was at Princeton. After a while, when people tell you you can't do something because you're a woman, you begin to believe maybe they're right.
When a man gets cheated on, I'm like, 'Meh, he'll find somebody else.' When a woman gets cheated on, that's a deep wound. I think when a man is widowed, like Liam Neeson, I think that has more of an effect - you had a great love and the universe took...
As a black woman who grows up in a predominantly white neighborhood, you learn how to perform a 'good' version of yourself. And then when you're with your home girls, you're saying all kinds of stuff that sounds all kinds of crazy, but you understand...
I just don't believe in abortion, period. But I would never take away a woman's right to choose what's good for her body. But I still believe that when you do have an abortion, still inside, you go through a lot of stuff. It tears away at your spirit...
One day I was in Starbucks going through one of my books on accounting, and this beautiful young woman came up to me and said, 'My accounting book is different from yours.' Her name was Joyce, she had a background in finance and administration and ra...
My daughter has probably gotten some benefit of being inspired by a woman who is willing to take on things. We travel. We travel to exotic places. I'm the first person to jump in the ocean with a whale. Even if I'm scared, I'll do it anyway, because ...
I'm a great mother because of my intentions on being a great mother; I'm a good friend because I'm loyal; I'm a good daughter because I've hopefully made my mother proud; I'm a great human being because I accept that there's a spiritual being underne...
Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film....
I'm an off-road racecar driver. And I think every woman in my life has told me that's not a sensible hobby. But when I was growing, even more than I wanted to be funny, I wanted to be a racecar driver. That's all I thought about. I worked for a race ...
I think Amy Poehler and Tina Fey have done so much for women in comedy in the sense that they've normalized it. You don't think, 'I'm going to watch that comedy starring a woman,' you think, 'I'm going to watch that funny show.' They refuse to play t...
I'm a wise Latina woman. Whatever, man. Thank God I'm not in politics, because the fact that you have to explain everything - I'd kill myself. I can't take all those little things they dissect. I'm like, 'Oh my God, get a life.' I don't have time for...
Diane Keaton, I've worked with her as a director, and I think she's a really intelligent woman. I like the fact that the things that make her feel beautiful are more than just her face; it's who she is, and I live by that same theory. There are thing...
My mom is a huge woman of worth for me because she's been my idol my whole life. My mom was someone who juggled everything. She had her own career, she raised five kids, she was Superwoman... and she was never satisfied doing just one thing because.....
Queen Victoria was a woman of peerless common sense; her common sense, which is a rare gift at any time, amounted to genius. She had been brought up by her mother with the utmost simplicity, and she retained it to the end, and conducted her public an...
With 'Love & Basketball,' I played ball my whole life and did track at UCLA. So, I'm an athlete. And it was very important for me to get it right. I started with casting: As an athlete, there's nothing worse for me than watching a sports movie and th...
I used to have terrible acne on my face: red, splotchy discoloration. And mucus - I was constantly blowing my nose. Then one day, this woman sits down next to me on a bus, and says, 'You're lactose-intolerant.' It all cleared up in three days. That c...
Not to sound bad, but some girls are dumb. It's because they spend so much of their life trying to have the right look. On the other hand, some girls are just really smart. There are girls you can have conversations with that are healthy conversation...
I'm really proud of being part of that whole geek/chic, girl nerds, glasses are sexy and all of that because I think it's true. In America, I don't know about in other places, but there is this mythology about the way a woman is supposed to be and lo...
I can't stand quitters. My mother is a very strong, determined woman. I was peeling onions when I was seven, but I walked off when my eyes began to sting. She said to me, 'You start something and you finish it', and that stuck with me. I'm persistent...
Ladies, set your standards high. Never lower them.. The day you do, you will get less then what you deserve. Every woman, deserves to be treated like a queen with respect. It's better to be single and fabulous on your own then to be in a relationship...
