[ Actors ] are in the business of creating human beings, of finding out what makes you tick -- the psychological pathology, pathology is the study of tumors. Acting is a study of' What is your tumor ? What is that nucleus ?' And in order to do that, I felt like if I took that wig off... what it's going to force the writer to do is write the woman.

Viola Davis

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You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.

Viola Davis

please destiny dream

They say the two most important days in a person's life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.

Viola Davis

born important two

Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.

Viola Davis

womanhood ideas

When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive.

Viola Davis

bigger passion

I don't have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn't love me has to say about me.

Viola Davis

up-all-night worry night

When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.

Viola Davis

people-in-your-life praying people

Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.

Viola Davis

dose good-health healthy

There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair.

Viola Davis

mother hair children

You can't be hesitant about who you are.

Viola Davis

hesitant who-you-are

Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.

Viola Davis

powerful hero thinking

You have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it. When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life.

Viola Davis

desperate-situations choices two

Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.

Viola Davis

color winning opportunity

All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.

Viola Davis

tiny people needs

But the biggest beauty advice I've given my daughter is every morning I say, "Genesis, what are the two best parts of you?" And she says "my brain and my heart." And I say, "You've gotta remember that, Genesis. You've gotta remember that you're not what you look like," you know? I think that's the best beauty advice I could give her.

Viola Davis

daughter heart morning

I’m a black woman who is from Central Falls, Rhode Island. I’m dark skinned. I’m quirky. I’m shy. I’m strong. I’m guarded. I’m weak at times. I’m sensual. I’m not overtly sexual. I am so many things in so many ways and I will never see myself on screen. And the reason I will never see myself up on screen is because that does not translate with being black.

Viola Davis

strong dark fall

I don’t want anyone putting any limits on me.

Viola Davis

limits want

At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. 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.

Viola Davis

wall giving people

As an artist, you've got to see the mess. That's what we do. We get a human being, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty.

Viola Davis

mixtures artist together

I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent

Viola Davis

gifts-and-talents levels want

I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.

Viola Davis

shapes inspire way