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All Quotes by author - Teyonah Parris

" An actor hears 'no' more often than the average person. A black human and a black woman on top of that? That's a lot of no's. "

" As a girl, I remember looking up to pop singers, and they all had long, straight weaves and light skin. And I thought, 'That's what I have to look like if I'm going to be fierce and sexy and all those things.' "

" As black women, we're miles behind our white counterparts in being offered the space to create and craft female characters in major blockbuster films. "

" A show like 'Orange Is the New Black' has every race and ethnicity - and you don't even have to depend on four networks any more. You can go to Amazon or Netflix and be in an award-winning show. "

" Ever since I was maybe nine or 10 years old, I'd say, 'I'm gonna be an actor, and I'm gonna go to Julliard, and I'm gonna be in movies.' My parents never said, 'What's your backup plan?' "

" Every time I get a role, or the opportunity to explore a role, I look at it, and I think, 'What is the story we're trying to tell here?' "

" Every time I see my friends on a billboard, I'm so excited. If God can do it for me or them, he can do it for everybody. "

" For me, it's always about the work and the stories I'm telling and the slices of life I feel should be illuminated. "

" Generally, when I'm going to a new project, I take my own makeup. I'll explain to them what it is that I would like. If they are receptive, we figure it out together. If they're not, I'll be going to back to my trailer and doing my own makeup. And that's the same for hair. "

" I always want to tell the truth. It doesn't have to be a pretty truth, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing and life-threatening truth like 'Chi-Raq.' But I want to tell someone's truth in an effort to inspire people to see themselves reflected on the screen. "

" I don't even watch basketball. I can't even pretend. "

" I, for myself, have wanted to get more into producing because I want to be a part of the conversation and be one of the voices in the story we're trying to tell. "

" I got my first relaxer when I was nine years old. This was in the '90s, and I convinced my mom to let me perm my hair so I could wear a French roll with the crimps in the front. "

" I had been getting relaxers since I was eight or nine. I had no clue. It was a personal mission to really find out who am when I'm not altering myself to look like anybody else. Who am I when I wake up and I don't do anything to my hair? Who is that woman? I want to meet her. And that was what catapulted my journey into going natural. "

" I love my 'Survivor's Remorse' cast. They are so funny and crazy, like a big dysfunctional family. It's so much fun, and I love the issues that we talk about on that show. We deal with nuanced and controversial issues, and we do it in a way that's funny. It's comedy. "

" I love period dramas. "

" I'm influenced by many things. Simply turning on the television, I feel inundated with images and messages to be a certain way. So I try to limit my influences by being aware of what I allow into my environment. I'm always conscious of what's trying to creep into my subconscious. "

" I'm like any other girl: I see the Instagram posts and the Tumblr stuff. I'm inspired by what my fellow girls are doing. "

" I'm looking through old things of mine, and there was this binder from when I was 14 years old. It is essentially a dream board. It is a school binder that I had put magazine clippings on. It said, 'TV actress, fame, a picture of Halle Berry, a picture of Christina Aguilera.' I was obsessed with both of them. "

" In my junior year of high school, I went to a boarding school for the arts: a school called the Governor's School for The Arts and Humanities. It was basically a mini-Juilliard - an intense training conservatory for the arts. "

" In working with Nick Cannon, he's such a generous guy, a generous actor, and he was very protective. "

" I really feel like the stars have aligned many ways, many times for me. I have been blessed to play some awesome roles and nuanced and meaningful characters. "

" It feels good to be a role model for little girls who don't often see natural hair on the red carpet. "

" I think, no matter who you are, at some point in your life you've probably said, 'OK, well, who am I, and where do I fit in?' "

" I think people need to watch 'Chi-Raq' because you need to know what's happening in your back yard. "

" I think social media is a slippery slope because while you're projecting something out to people, they also project back onto you what they want to see. "

" It only takes one person to mobilize a community and inspire change. Even if you don't feel like you have it in you, it's in you. You have to believe in yourself. People will see your vision and passion and follow you. "

" I try to be very particular about the roles I choose and what they say and put into the universe. I try to do my part. "

" It's important, as a young person of color, to see yourself reflected in the media. "

" It's no coincidence that the cities with the highest rates of violence also have the highest rates of unemployment. There are not many opportunities. We have to address that, starting from the government down and the grassroots up. "

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