I was very blessed to have family and friends, but particularly family, who told me I was not only all right, I was just right, so I believe that my brain is a good one, and it’s lasting me very well.

I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.

I don’t have many sad days.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

My children love Maleficent’s voice, so they always make me do it at home.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

It is not so much our friends‘ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

If I’d been born ugly, you’d never have heard of Pele.

If we say it long enough eventually we’re going to reap a harvest. We’re going to get exactly what we’re saying.

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

At the end of the day, I understand that life has road blocks, and life is like school – you’ll be tested; we gotta pass it.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

Part of me feels you can’t say you were truly in love if it didn’t last. If I end up getting married and having kids, that’s when I’ll know it’s real – because it lasted.

I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.

I was told that someone on Facebook said something ‚horrible‘ about me. Who cares? At least they’re watching the show.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they’re already asleep.

My father wasn’t a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher – one of those Victorians, hard as iron – but my dad was tough enough.

It took Simone a long time to understand why people want Daddy’s autograph. I’d tell her, and my wife would tell her, too, ‚People see Daddy in the movies, and they are excited to meet him.‘ But she couldn’t really grasp it.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

You’ll see it when you believe it.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

I always thought money was something just to make me happy. But I’ve learned that I feel better being able to help my folks, ‚cause we never had nothing. So just to see them excited about my career is more of a blessing than me actually having it for myself.

You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still ‚mom-in-chief.‘ My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

My parents taught me service – not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families – second families, perhaps I should say.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

When I was growing up, I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn’t have parents.

I don’t think I’m an unlucky person.

Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.