At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.
Ditch the dream and be a doer.
You are not alone. You are seen. I am with you. You are not alone.
I don’t understand why people don’t understand that the world of TV should look like the world outside of TV.
Making it through the ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman’s footprints.
Mother is a verb, not a noun.
Nobody got anything great by playing it safe.
Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life.
I happen to like debating, and I like to debate like a lawyer, and I can argue any points to death, and I will.
You can’t tell stories and really walk in someone’s shoes and not have a love for them, even if they’re doing horrible things.
I’m a black woman every day, and I’m not confused about that. I’m not worried about that. I don’t need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a black woman, because I don’t feel disempowered as a black woman.
Calling a show a ‘guilty pleasure’ is like saying ‘I’m embarrassed to say I watch it but I can’t stop.’ That’s not a compliment.
Nobody ever asks a man how he gets stuff done. Nobody asks a man how he finds balance.
Everyone always says to me, ‘Why aren’t there more people of color on television?’ I’m like, ‘Why don’t you ask a bunch of people who aren’t putting people of color on television why there aren’t more people of color on television?’
I remember saying, very almost jokingly, I’m going to take over the world through television, that’s my plan. And I said it to my agent, and I said it to my friends, and I said it to myself.
I never, ever pay attention to the ratings. I stopped paying attention to the ratings somewhere around season two or three of Grey’s. It’s something I have no control over, so I don’t even pay attention.
Ive learned this is a very long marriage doing a television show. I like the people that I work with to be people I enjoy, so you want to cast people who are as excited and enthusiastic as you are.
I was 4 and dictating stories into a tape recorder, and my mom typed them up.
A hashtag is not helping. A hashtag is not a movement. A hashtag does not make you Dr King. A hashtag does not change anything. It’s a hashtag.
I really don’t think there’s a world in which you can do anything with anybody. Because we’re in the world of the White House, I think there are certain things you can do, and larger things that can happen, but I don’t think you can do anything.
I am terrible with examples. I can never think of them when anybody asks for an example.