Every time I overcome an obstacle, it feels like success. Sometimes the biggest ones are in our head - the saboteurs that tell us we can't. Lupita Nyong'o More Quotes by Lupita Nyong'o More Quotes From Lupita Nyong'o I think it's a real gift to be faced with man's potential for extreme cruelty but also man's resilience and the fact that love really does conquer everything. It's the only answer to these kinds of atrocities and it's not a passive thing. Lupita Nyong'o real men thinking Everyone said, ‘Brace yourself, Lupita! Keep a granola bar in that clutch of yours!’ I didn’t really understand what they meant, and it was only once it was past that I realized that my body had been holding on by a thread to get through this very intense experience. Nothing can prepare you for awards season. The red carpet feels like a war zone, except you cannot fly or fight; you just have to stand there and take it. Lupita Nyong'o fighting war past You win an Oscar, and immediately people ask how you feel. So you don't have time to actually feel anything because you have to generate a response. And then some of the feelings you have are so intimate and visceral, words don't really do them justice. Lupita Nyong'o winning justice people It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's. Lupita Nyong'o thankful thank-you life And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. Lupita Nyong'o wake-up miracle prayer As actors, you become an expert at starting over. Lupita Nyong'o starting-over actors experts You can’t eat beauty. It doesn’t feed you. Lupita Nyong'o compassion-for-yourself When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did. Lupita Nyong'o kenya successful college Human beings have an instinct for freedom. Lupita Nyong'o instinct human-beings humans Your value is in yourself; the other stuff will come and go. Lupita Nyong'o comes-and-goes values stuff I don't think I will ever be able to really articulate how bizarre it was to hear my name at the Academy Awards. I'd watched in my pajamas the year before! I felt numb - dazed and confused. I remember feeling light - weightless. More like limbo than cloud nine. At first I was like, This is my statue; nobody gets to touch it. And by midnight I was like, Please, someone, take this statue; it's too heavy! So I gave it to my brother, and he went off with it. Lupita Nyong'o confused brother thinking I was bullied by my siblings and cousins, so make-believe was a way in which I could be in charge. When I was like 10 and my sister was about five, I convinced her that she was going to jail because she used a bad word. The doorbell happened to ring, and I told her it was the police. I made her pack her bags. She was crying, and then I said to her, "I forgive you, and I'm gonna tell the cop to go away." Then, of course, she loved me. It was terrible - she still remembers it. I had a sordid sense of humor. Lupita Nyong'o cousin sibling believe Growing up in Kenya, slum life was not far away. I had family that lived in slums, so I visited them often, and so I've seen and interacted with abject poverty. But I also know that because of that, poverty is not the definition of the people that live there. Lupita Nyong'o kenya growing-up people Happiness is the most important thing. Lupita Nyong'o important-things important In the madness, you have to find calm. Lupita Nyong'o calm madness I had this vivid image of myself at the age of 60 looking back on my life and truly regretting the fact that I hadn't tried to be an actor Lupita Nyong'o regret actors age European standards of beauty are something that plague the entire world - the idea that darker skin is not beautiful, that light skin is the key to success and love. Africa is no exception. Lupita Nyong'o light keys beautiful I've had somebody say, "I want you at my wedding, but I don't want you to pull focus, so wear jeans!" Losing my anonymity is something that's proving to be very challenging.... It's good for your soul to walk around unnoticed; there's so much you can't do when everybody knows who you are. And I so miss those little things. Lupita Nyong'o jeans focus missing With success comes more responsibility, a larger size of existence, which is uncomfortable. Lupita Nyong'o size existence responsibility I've always had that going on: "I can't," and then I do, so the voice says, "Well, that was an exception!" It's a tug-of-war between two voices: the one who knows she can and the one who's scared she can't. Lupita Nyong'o voice war two
