I think I am at my best when my hair is short. It's easier to take care of and more of who I am. Women are conditioned to think we need long hair.

The times may have changed, but the people are still the same. We're still looking for love, and that will always be our struggle as human beings.

During really difficult times in my life when I start questioning why I am struggling with something, I often turn to books to understand myself better.

This moment is so much bigger than me. It's for every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.

Being biracial is sort of like being in a secret society. Most people I know of that mix have a real ability to be in a room with anyone, black or white.

There's a place in me that can really relate to being the underdog. I'm always fighting to overcome the obstacle. I can really understand what's that about.

We've become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth and, frankly, I'm really saddened by the way women mutilate their faces today in search of that.

I was black growing up in an all-white neighborhood, so I felt like I just didn't fit in. Like I wasn't as good as everybody else, or as smart, or whatever.

I also have been called that terrible "N" word straight to my face and not known what to do about it because it was just in like 1993 that someone called me that.

I used to believe that if my career was going great, then I was not entitled to a great personal life. Well, I've stopped thinking that way. I believe I can have it all.

Although some people will say it's a cliché, I think not having had a father when I was growing up affect me negatively because I didn't have a good role model to follow.

There have been so many people who have said to me, 'You can't do that,' but I've had an innate belief that they were wrong. Be unwavering and relentless in your approach.

First of all, I'm not pretty. I'm not a world class beauty, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just a guy. I was slow going and stuff like that. I was just never that brand of news.

People win 'Oscars', and then it seems like they fall off the planet. And that's partly because a huge expectation walks in the room and sits right down on top of your head.

As a woman, when you embrace where you are in life, then I think the struggle [life] isn't so hard. If you're 42 and still think you're an ingenue, then you've got a problem.

Actors always have to fight for the good parts. There are so few good roles written for women each year, and when one is written like this every actress in town covets the role.

I chose a sunflower because when darkness descends they close up to regenerate. But I really wish I'd never had the tattoo in the first place. Clean, clear skin is always better.

My pregnancy was amazing. I was happy that whole time, I felt good, I had energy, I was like Superwoman. I wish I could feel like that for the rest of my life, that's how fantastic it was.

When you have short hair, there's just a feeling of here I am. What you see is what you get. And there's a confidence that comes with wearing short hair and I like the way that makes me feel.

I no longer scramble blindly through hardship. I no longer emerge from a bad time feeling relieved just to have survived. Instead of despairing, I try to find the lesson within the experience.

I can't imagine my life without animals. I have two dogs and three cats. Coming home and finding them all lined up at the door waiting for me has got to be one of the sweetest joys of my life.

Growing older is not such a big deal for me, despite the fears that older actresses have in Hollywood. When I hit 40, for example, I didn't feel 40 - or whatever that is supposed to feel like.

When a young woman tells me that she wants to become and actor, I say, 'No, be a writer. Or go to business school and learn how to run a studio.' The only real change will come from behind the scenes.

If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.

I get offered varied parts, often super sexy roles. But I still think it's an issue to find the good scripts. It's a myth that you win an Oscar and you get more opportunities, and this doesn't just go for me.

I think there's a certain level of trust that I have with women. I've always been honest, even when I haven't had good times in my life or my movie bombed or I've had great success. I've owned up to all of it.

Let me tell you something - being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory.

My daughter doesn't want to go to school because she knows 'the men' are watching for her. They jump out of the bushes and from behind cars and who knows where else, besieging these children just to get a photo.

I meditate and pray all the time. The faith and respect that I have in the power of God in my life is what I've used to keep myself grounded, and it has allowed me to move away from the storms that were in my life.

I won't have a traditional marriage; I don't find the value in that anymore. But I am such a hopeless romantic and I really want love and I want a committed relationship, so I am going to reinvent marriage for myself.

When an opportunity comes your way, it's about making sure you're prepared to be the one who can walk through the door and deliver the goods. And I've had a lot of luck on my side and I've been prepared for that luck.

Every story about me is so heavy and dramatic. That's not how I do life. But that's the impression people have, and that's what keeps getting reiterated. As if I'm still stuck in all the muck of the past. And I am so not.

I see women in their 30s getting plastic surgery, pulling this up and tucking that back. It's like a slippery slope - once you start you pull one thing one way and then you think, 'Oh my God, I've got to do the other side.'

When you grow up in that (multi-ethnic) environment, you see the world differently. Being a mixed-race child, I didn't always see colour in people, I really didn't. It was other people that made me see the colour all the time.

What's hardest for me to swallow is when there is a love story, say, with a really high-profile male star and there's no reason I can't play the part. They say, 'Oh, we love Halle, we just don't want to go black with this part.'

I knew that I was a good writer in high school and won awards, and I was the editor of my school newspaper. So I knew that I was a good writer and I wanted to somehow capitalize and sort of utilize a talent that I thought I had.

In a perfect world, I would be a painter. I love working with my hands. I don't get to do it as much as I like, but I am finding a way to make more time as life goes on because it's a really great outlet for me to express myself.

If you set out to do something and you give it your all and it doesn't work out, be willing to modify your goal slightly. Have the ability to look in another direction. A small shift could guide you to the real purposes of your life.

I know that there is a God - the God within me that's always present and will protect me. I'm not afraid to climb any mountain, because I know that I'm protected. Even if I fall and die, I'm still protected. My faith is on that level.

Here's the thing - you can't be careful about what you pick because what looks like on paper is going to be a great script has often turned out to be a disaster, so there's no way to know what's going to work or to pick the right thing.

I want to do roles that are fun and challenging and I want to try different things. I don't want to keep doing Monster's Ball over and over and over again. I want to keep doing my career the way that I was doing it before I won the Oscar.

People win Oscars, and then it seems like they fall off the planet. And that's partly because a huge expectation walks in the room and sits right down on top of your head. The moment I won the Oscar, I felt the teardown the very next day.

I don't buy into that pressure to be glamorous all the time. It's impossible, I mean, you get a pimple in the morning, you wake up with bags under your eyes, you see if you can use it in your work, maybe incorporate it into your character.

I never wanted to be a model. My modelling career was nothing but a stepping stone to my acting career and that's all I ever saw it as. A pointless rock in the river that has to be stepped on in order to get to the meaningful oasis of acting.

Just to be true to myself, which is why I did this movie. I figured everyone was going to freak out and say, 'Why would you do that after Dorothy Dandridge?' My answer is 'Because I can.' And that feels really good to be comfortable saying that.

Blackness is a state of mind and I identify with the black community. Mainly, because I realized, early on, when I walk into a room, people see a black woman, they don't see a white women. So out of that reason alone, I identify more with the black community.

Blackness is a state of mind, and I identify with the black community. Mainly, because I realized, early on, when I walk into a room, people see a black woman, they don't see a white woman. So out of that reason alone, I identify more with the black community.

I archive a lot of my clothes and have them wrapped up and in boxes. I call them 'little tombs' and keep them in a storage space... I would never get rid of the dress I wore on the night I won my Oscar. When I die, someone can have it, but not a minute before!

When I think, where did I laugh the most, where did I eat the most, where did I just feel good all the time, I would say making the Bond movie 'Die Another Day.' To be part of such an iconic franchise and to travel to exotic places - that was the most fun I ever had.

When I was younger, living in an all-black neighborhood the other kids thought I was better than them because of my light skin and straight hair. Then we moved to an all-white neighborhood and that was a culture shock ... I'd been used to being around all black kids.

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