"They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too."
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Quote collection
Viola Davis quotes (page 3 of 9)
172 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"It feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy, to be my sexualized, to be my woman."
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"And this is what was fascinating to me about 'The Help'; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things."
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"I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different."
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"Knowing the only way out is education, even if you don't have parents that are extraordinarily wealthy. I understand that I have to be an active participant in [my daughter's] education in order for her to thrive in the world."
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"I've always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure."
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"Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It’s always the unspoken word and what’s happening behind someone’s eyes that makes it so rich."
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"I've been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you're comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone's going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity."
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"That's how I digest it, 'cause I can press the fast-forward button and I know that I'm gonna have to continue to be an actor, continue to make choices, continue to perform in a show every week."
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"You see all the young girls, and they're so skinny. I actually don't even twirl anymore. They say, "Twirl, let us see your back." I just tell 'em, "I do not twirl. If you want to see my back, when I walk away, you can take a picture of it. I'm not twirling." You know, I twirled once, and I almost fell. It looks ridiculous. So I said I'm not twirling anymore."
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"Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it."
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"I always say that, like a scientist or anyone, you always want to be the problem-solver. You feel like, if you solve the greatest mystery or the greatest problem, then that makes you brilliant. It's the same thing with an actress. You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny and all the things that a person could be."
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"If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it."
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"I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there."
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"I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated."
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"I'm a sitting duck. No, seriously, I mean I wish I could say more, but I'm a sitting duck because I can't get ahead of them [cyber experts]. They're far ahead of me. That's what I learned: how vulnerable we are. It's a big, silent monster out there. That's what it feels like."
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"I think that I'm coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world."
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"The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you."
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"I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out."
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"It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated."
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