Kerry Washington Quotations

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.

I don't think I'm even close to fulfilling my potential. And I think also that, unlike a pianist or a flutist, an actor has an instrument that is constantly changing.

Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote, our right to choose, affordable quality education, equal pay, access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.

I think sometimes in life we want to ignore the problems of society and just think about the good. I believe in positive thinking and affirmative living, I also think it's really important to remember all of our disenfranchised members of society.

You see the transformation that the arts have on young people. It changes their lives for the better. That's where my engagement is.

I'm here not just as an actress but as a woman, an African-American, a granddaughter of Ellis Island immigrants, a person who could not have afforded college without the help of student loans and as one of millions of volunteers working to re-elect President Obama!

I think generalizations of any sort are dangerous. I'll say, if that is the case - right now it's an American issue.

You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.

About a year ago I got really exhausted from reading bad scripts and I know that I am a writer and that I have stories to tell, so I thought, 'Let's do this!' So I'm co-writing a screenplay now with another screenwriter and loving it. Absolutely loving it. And I would like to be the producer on the project and of course the lead is me.

I am co-writing a screenplay now and I'm working on the rights to another story I want to do. So I plan to produce and direct. So, for me, I don't really feel that I am vulnerable to that sad baggage that comes with the business of filmmaking.

I think most people, when they think about the Black Panther Party, they think in very abstract, caricatured terms. They think about black fists in the air, but they don't think about the actual people, and the families, and the relationships.

I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.

I've always been a writer because I've always been a student. My mom's a retired professor, so I come from a very academic background. I love writing, you know?

I always prided myself on the fact that I could live out of milk crates forever. It was kind of my way of detaching from materialism.

I wouldn't just come home from school and watch TV everyday, they had me involved in lots of local theatre. I was a very dramatic, talkative child. And that was part of my mother's creative solution - to put me in workshops and classes and children's theatre programmes.

As a young girl, my real dream was to be the woman in the shows at SeaWorld.

I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race.

You know what's funny is that I have this ongoing relationship with the city of Washington D.C. I went to George Washington University, and my nickname was K-Dub - based on G-Dub - and I'm now on the board of trustees at George Washington University.

That's what acting is - it's about... having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.

So many struggled so that all of us could have a voice in this great democracy and live up to the first three words of our constitution: We the people. I love that phrase so much. Throughout our country's history, we've expanded the meaning of that phrase to include more and more of us. That's what it means to move forward.

I grew up in New York, so I fell in love with acting on a stage, not in front of a camera.

I really love research. It's one of the things I love most about my job. I feel like it's me in the lab cooking up the character.

Every actor you work with has a different method, same with the director. You have to figure out what your shared language is and how to best support each other, and also take care of yourself.

I come from the theater and I plan to always do theater. So I don't really see myself not being able to act even if people don't think I am sexy enough for film at 40, I'll still be acting.

I feel like any single woman of color who's been onstage has a Shakespeare monologue in her back pocket, and a monologue from 'For Colored Girls.' It's just part of what you should have, as a woman of color.

People don't think about the fact that when Barack Obama's parents had him - it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can't, it's a slippery slope of civil rights. Who knows who is going to be allowed to marry or not marry next.

Making the unbelievable believable is different on a set with 'Fantastic Four,' where it's like, 'Wind machines! Because the airship is coming in and you're pretending to be afraid!

When somebody shows up at your job and jeopardizes your job, yelling and screaming, that's financial abuse. It threatens your ability to take care of yourself.

I'd never really heard of financial abuse, although it makes so much sense when you hear it defined.

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell the difference between independent filmmaking and studio filmmaking because all the studios have these little independent satellites. It's interesting.

I'd figure out ways to use role-playing in the healing of people.

I think that the best day will be when we no longer talk about being gay or straight - it's not a 'gay wedding,' it's just a 'wedding'... It's not a 'gay marriage,' it's just 'a marriage.' It's not a 'black man' or 'white woman,' it's just 'a man' and 'a woman,' or 'a human' and 'a human.' I'd just like to get to that.

People don't think about the fact that when Barack Obama's parents had him it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can't, it's a slippery slope of civil rights.

You're able to make a real difference. If a woman's able to step away financially, she's able to begin to do all the other work.

I think my first big heartbreak made me more compassionate about other people's heartaches. It enabled me to feel more for others when they are in moments of pain.

There are already a number of gatherings centered around women of color who are doing inspiring work.

There are so many untold stories when it comes to great women of color.

It is important to have friends and family around that I love and trust and who love and trust me.

I think all of us in our lives feel like we can't make a difference or we can't make a change or it's too late or we're too tired or we're too scared.

Whenever I talk to survivors [of a domestic abuse relationship] who have lived through that and are on the other side and their whole perspective on life is a complete 180, I'm just so inspired.

From what I've been told, the scariest part of being part of a domestic abuse relationship is the idea that you cannot escape and you cannot get help, that feeling of being stuck.

That's what acting is - it's about having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.

We don’t come out of the womb filled with prejudice, racism, and homophobia. Kids are taught to hate, so we have to protect our young people’s minds from those evils.

Arts education must be part of our education solution because it works for all students.

You can be the lead in your own life.

I feel like I barely survived Django (Unchained) emotionally - the violence, hearing the N-word every day. It cost me a lot psychologically, but it was worth it to tell that story.

My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don't know why I wouldn't seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn't I go to a shrink?

I don't gravitate toward any one designer because I think of fashion as the costume of the everyday woman.

Look, I get it. Whether it's school, work, family, we've all got a lot on our minds. People say to me, "I'm just too busy to think about politics." But here's the thing: You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.

The No. 1 reason women stay in abusive relationships - because they're not able to take care of themselves financially. It's also the No. 1 reason why women go back.

I work very physically as an actor. The biggest thing for me has been the challenge of how to be this person with the personal transformation that's going on for me physically... That hasn't been easy. It's been an awesome challenge for me... because so much of how I access character is through my body.

I didn't grow up thinking I was pretty; there was always a prettier girl than me. So I learned to be smart and tried to be funny and develop the inside of me, because I felt like that's what I had.

I just want [my daughter Isabelle] to know that she's heard. Really heard, because I feel like that is what we all really want. When I think about any of the missteps in my life that I've made, all of which I'm grateful for, it's because I just so wanted to be truly seen and heard for who I am and was afraid I wasn't or wouldn't be. I see you, I hear you, I'm with you as you are.

We can't say that we believe in each other’s fundamental humanity and then turn a blind eye to the reality of each others existence and the truth of each other’s hearts. We must be allies. And we must be allies in this business because to be represented is to be humanized. And as long as anyone, anywhere is being made to feel less human, our very definition of humanity is at stake and we are all vulnerable.

I have a deep, deep love for sneakers.

Human beings are complicated and flawed and unique, but we all have a story to tell. Gone are the days where our lead characters can only look like somebody else. Heroes look like all of us. We see ourselves in each others' stories. We see who we are. We see who we want to be. Sometimes we see who we don't want to be. And through that we have a greater understanding of ourselves and acceptance of each other.

I've been doing this work [ambassador of VDay]for a long time, and there are so many ways that we have to work to eradicate domestic violence and violence against women, this felt like such a tangible way to make a difference.

My understanding of Twitter was that it was a bunch of famous people telling you when they're going to the bathroom. And, that was not something I wanted to be part of.

I was really lucky because I went to an all-girl school and that single sex education really helped me because I really learned to bond with women and to not compete with or compare myself as much because we were all allowed to be ourselves and be unique and kind of have our unique strengths.

You can never control how people respond to your work. You can only control your own work ethic.

Because having your story told, as a woman, as a person of color, as a lesbian or as a trans person, or as any member of any disenfranchised community... is sadly often still a radical idea. There is so much power in storytelling and there is enormous power in inclusive storytelling and inclusive representations .

I'll be honest with you. I'm a little bit of a loner. It's been a big part of my maturing process to learn to allow people to support me. I tend to be very self-reliant and private. And I have this history of wanting to work things out on my own and protect people from what's going on with me.

As long as anyone anywhere is being made to feel less human, our very definition of humanity is at stake, and we are all vulnerable.

When you leave here today and commence the next stage of your life, you can follow someone else's script, try to make choices that will make other people happy, avoid discomfort, do what is expected, and copy the status quo. Or you can look at all that you have accomplished today and use it as fuel to venture forth and write your own story. If you do, amazing things will take shape.

To meet somebody who's able to harness the level of courage it takes to walk away and to choose your own life and your own health, the well-being of your family, is really inspiring.

We need to be willing to be uncomfortable, to be flawed, to be imperfect, to own our voice, to step into our light, so that we can continue to inspire other people and employ other people, and make room for more and more voices and presence.

I'm not interested in living in a world where my race is not a part of who I am. I am interested in living in a world where our races, no matter what they are, don't define our trajectory in life.

We as women put ourselves in this situation of feeling like we can’t take a risk, like in order to step out there we have to be perfect, because we’re scared that if we don’t say the right thing, or do the right thing, that we’ll reflect poorly on ourselves and our community, whether that community be women, people of color, both.

Your life is your story, and the adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential.

Voting for [Donald] Trump Is Voting Against Ourselves.

You and you alone are the only person that can live the life that writes the story that you were meant to tell. And the world needs your story because the world needs your voice.

Learn to embrace your own unique beauty, celebrate your unique gifts with confidence. Your imperfections are actually a gift.

I don't have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life.