Being an actress in Hollywood and being a celebrity tend to feed into one another, but just being a celebrity wouldn't really be interesting to me.
I don't really believe in elegance. Ever since I first came to France many years ago to do the Chambre Syndicale course, I always felt I was somehow lacking, first of all being British - obviously a disaster! But I was also puzzled with this idea that you have to tie your Hermes scarf just right, or you can only wear black.
It's very difficult, I would imagine, to distinguish father and daughter. And maybe some of it comes as I'm doing my thing and my father being a very strong political African figure for so many years. Whatever he does is almost like some kind of cloud on top.
Being attractive, it's not something I do consciously. It's incredibly flattering that people think I appeal to women. But that was a gift from my parents.
I started off as many fathers do. I enjoyed the good bits, but I was wary of the responsibility. But now I love being a dad.
What I'm trying to argue, as passionately as I can, is that the Jesus story isn't worth dying for, it's worth living for. Jesus presents a third way, a way of being in the worth that embraces the Sermon on the Mount, with its challenge to violence and greed.
I want to avoid being labeled a sexy starlet, even at the cost of not working.
As a cameraman, I was paid to stand within a few feet of Yehudi Menuhin performing. I saw Rudolph Nureyev dancing. I couldn't believe I was being paid for that.
Since being on television, I have felt that my brain is degenerating.
We stipulate about where we need to be in life: By this age you should be married, by this age you should have kids. But it's not that you can only do this or only do that. It's really about creating a holistic life: about planning ahead and being efficient with your time and really listening to yourself.
After having children, life becomes about living beyond yourself; about being bigger and better.
I have a tendency toward being a micromanager.
In 2013, when Google announced that Kansas City would be the first city in the country to have Google Fiber, I bought a house in the first neighborhood that was being wired up with Google's gigabit Internet.
As much as I love being a singer-songwriter, I love throwing down on stage and letting it all out.
As a writer, I was shaped by a desire to write for black people. That things were not being represented. That was my motivating force. That it has become what it has become is shocking to me. I just wanted to be able to take care of my kids.
I was just a kid and I didn't have a dad. That's hard, because when you're a kid, you blame yourself for everything. And I blamed myself for him not being around, for my parents not being together.
The political process is rough and tumble by definition, and being grounded in faith in a Higher Power has proven helpful in navigating the difficult terrain.
Being an actor, you go through this thing where you want to be the best, and I think, in life in general, you go through this thing where you want to be the best always, constantly.
I do consider myself as being French, I suppose.
No human being will work hard at anything unless they believe that they are working for competence.
Every teenager feels like a freak. It's part of being a teenager, part of the individuation from child to adult - those teenage years are who am I? What am I? Where am I going?
To suggest the President of the United States and the head of the free world - the man who is changing the world - is being manipulated by Mitch McConnell is insulting to the president; it's absolutely insulting.
If you're working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.
I've said it before about the Nobel Prize: it's like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary.
I just love being outside.
Since the beginning, I have always tried to just be me. There have been moments in my career as a YouTuber where I've recognized that I'm trying to emulate something else, or I'm being heavily influenced by a YouTuber or something like that, and I realize that's not what I want to be putting out.
I want to be happy. I realized that being happy isn't necessarily about getting there, it's how you get there. It almost sounds like a cliche, but every entrepreneur I've talked to - every good entrepreneur - really enjoys the 'how you get here.'
Some have suffered death to make it possible for us to have the scriptures today. Historically, the scriptures in the Bible were reserved for the clergy, with the reading of them by others being denounced. At times, laws even prohibited the public or private reading of them.
My so-called 'reservations' and personal comfort zones can't define my work. That's not being professional. I feel that even if an actor is cast for the lead role or for any other part in the film, it is his job to do the film and not create an issue.
My way of putting it is that Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.
Viral videos aren't just about being funny. They're about identity creation.
Cary Grant never won an Oscar, primarily, I suspect, because he made everything look so effortless. Why reward someone for having fun, for being charming?
The highest heels I do are six-inch heels - but mostly only dancers can wear them, since they are used to being on point in ballet shoes. Their feet are arched.
I don't really dance. I don't drink or smoke. Being at parties is very awkward.
I grew up with three sisters, so I got used to being around them and all of their worries about fashion and what they are wearing.
There's an art to being a good actor, there's an art to being a celebrity, and there's an art to longevity.
