Viola Davis Quotes

"The predator wants your silence. It feeds their power, entitlement, and they want it to feed your shame."

"We all have different narratives; all of our narratives are at different stages of development."

"I truly believe that the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."

"What do you want? What do you want your life to be? What do you want your testimony to be? Go for it!"

"Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character."

"Your ability to adapt to failure, and navigate your way out of it, absolutely 100 percent makes you who you are."

"There's no prerequisites to worthiness. You're born worthy, and I think that's a message a lot of women need to hear."

"And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular."

"You have to have an unlimited imagination, an unlimited restraint on your inhibition when you're working. You have to even dare to fail, even in a scene, whatever it is."

"There's got to be a voice deep within you that is untouched by definitions. And it is there that you become divinely who you are."

"I reserve the right to be a mess and completely unlikable."

"When people come into the theater, whether it's the screen or the stage, they've gotta be transported and transformed."

"When you're poor, you are invisible. Every poor person will tell you nobody sees you. So being famous was me just wanting to be seen."

"The reason I became an actress is because I wanted my acting to reflect life as it is. I want to put truth on the screen. I want real women to see real women on the screen."

"I think I've lived long enough to understand that plans really are very overrated."

"I tell my daughter every morning, 'Now, what are the two most important parts of you?' And she says, 'My head and my heart.' Because that's what I've learned in the foxhole: What gets you through life is strength of character and strength of spirit and love."

"Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else."

"People who are alone all the time never grow. Those hermits just stay the same. It's only through relationships. Relationships change us and make us grow."

"Self-deprecation is not the answer to humility."

"I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people."

"Because I grew up in such tight spaces, I don't get manicures, pedicures. I'm not into cars, but I am into a fabulous house. I wanted the spiral staircase, clean sheets on the bed, to be able to take a shower."

"I didn't aspire to be just a celebrity; I aspired to be an actress... I always wanted to be respected as someone who knew their craft."

"The big 'Aha!' moment is that the trauma never goes away."

"What excites me is just taking some time to breathe in life. The mundane is very exciting."

"I definitely have a happy marriage and family life."

"I think women are very complicated human beings, and I think there's an oversimplification of women when you see them on screen."

"Acting is not rocket science, but it is an art form. What you are doing is illuminating humanity. Or not."

"We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age."

"To the predators... Weinstein, the stranger, the relative, the boyfriend... I say to you, 'You can choose your sin but you don't get to choose the consequences.' To the victims... I see you. I believe you... and I'm listening."

"So many women characters are extensions of male fantasy."