"and so I grew up really having to take care of myself and figure things out for myself ... but growing up independent also meant that I spent a lot of time out in the streets"

"what are some things you are interested in? Whatever you want to learn, anything is possible. If you want to be a coder, you can go online and learn how to code. The tools around us to learn are greater than any time before. Anything is at your finger tips if you want to learn"

"It has a distinctive feel and culture. You had to be tough, be aware. You had to be able to quickly adjust and maneuver"

"What gets me out of bed is that I can make a positive impact on people"

"Most of the men in my family were in jail, on drugs, caught up in the wrong things, and those are the things that I saw around me in Richmond"

"I don’t write anything down at all. It comes off the top of my head. It’s very casual. I want to feel like we are sitting in a cafe in Paris, and we are speaking to each other. I want it to be human and real"

"With technology I felt like anybody can do it, that it’s something for regular guys and girls. I loved that. I loved the democratization of success that technology offered"

"It’s such a surreal moment for me because I grew up 10 minutes away on the south side of the city ... but my whole life has been about doing things that weren’t imaginable for people coming from my background and my situation, and that’s the thing that keeps me going and inspires the work that I do at Kickstarter every single day"

"And I knew that, as a young kid, I was impressionable. So, some of the people that I saw with the most things, like the nice cars and the Jordans and the jewelry, they were dealing drugs, and they were doing things that they shouldn’t have been doing"

"I don’t think people are honest and direct in life. My word really matters to me – honestly, that really matters to me. It’s so important"

"We were always trying to find different ways where we could hustle and make a little bit of money for ourselves"

"Don’t fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself because you haven’t yet got to the stage where you can [pursue your dream] full time"

"Look at a day job as a type of fellowship that pays you to research a certain sector or society"

"I think writers have a responsibility to hold a mirror up to society. The beauty of writing is the reflection can, and should, come in various forms."

"When citizens allow leaders to get away with providing sub-par infrastructure, or none at all, without demanding more for themselves and their children, nations remain stuck in a cycle of poverty and victimhood"

"Keep going. If you keep writing, you’ll outpace the rejection. Storytelling is as old as humanity—every known civilization has told stories of life as they lived it, passed down legends of how we got here, and created fables or parables to illustrate morals or deliver lessons"

"I learned to trust my vision and advocate for it. I had experienced so much rejection that when I heard a “yes” I thought the process of “selling” my idea was over. In fact, that was the moment when I needed to be clearest about my intention"

"Stories are inextricable from existence which means your story has incalculable value. It is needed by someone, somewhere, and if you keep at it, at some point you will connect with that someone"

"I wanted to make the point that God works things for good--even when events in life seem random and ridiculous"

"I am motivated to write because it's important to me not to be defined by someone else. If we leave the Storytelling to other people we can't get too mad if they get it wrong. I also love writing--from the inspiration involved in coming up up with a concept to the discipline of the process to stringing the actual words together. I'm so thankful for the gift of words"

"I wanted to make the connection that just because a person is born outside the continent, he/she is not "other""

"I wanted to expose the superiority complex people in the West have concerning Africa."

"I hope to add my voice to the African authors before me, beside me, and behind me committed to creating balanced, engaging, informative, and authentic portraits of the continent. I don't want to romanticize Africa, but I do want people to be aware that there is more to the continent than corruption, political unrest, war, disease, poverty, genocide and the rest"

"You're gonna live longer than the ball is bouncing, God willing, and so there's a whole lot of life after basketball. So you kinda have to learn how to be a good human and, I can't think of a better person than coach Summitt that modeled that."

"I grew up with two older brothers who excelled at every single thing. And so, their shadows were very large and daunting at times."

"The pace, spacing, physicality, and overall athleticism have all taken major leaps, making the women’s game faster, deeper, and more dynamic than ever."

"But I like to consider myself an actor, and one of the assets that I have is that I’m black. And that I’m 6’3″! I just want to do work that gets people excited and makes them feel things, no matter their economic or racial background"

"I think it would be irresponsible of me to not be aware of the climate [in Hollywood] when it comes to the conversation about diversity"

"I mean, equity is what it’s about in business. For them to be able to have equity at this young of age, I think that that’s power.”"

"A few months ago I was still in school and no one knew who I was and now I’m on a show and my publicist is calling me! It’s so exciting. I’m just taking things day by day."

"I woke up two months ago and said “Whoa, whoa whoa! I’m an actor, how"

"I’m the youngest of six kids and I grew up with a lot of noise, a lot of music and a lot of laughter"

"I’m so thankful every day"

"I remembered that acting thing I had a really fun time with when I took the class and I said ‘Okay, I’m going to go try that for a little bit"

"There’s a lot of work out there, which makes for a wide variety of creativity and conversation. And most of all, employment, for a lot of really, really good actors"

"My father was Muslim and my mom is Christian, and we moved from New Orleans to Oakland, so I always had this appreciation for different cultures. Between those dichotomies and with eight people living in the house together, there was always drama. But it was enjoyable drama"

"I can only hope to do the same, and one way I can do that is by holding on to the second [in my name], because that means you have to acknowledge the first too: my father"

"My father [Yahya Abdul-Mateen] prayed for his parents every day and took them along the journey with them"

"My name is not the name you’d pick out of a hat – Yahya Abdul-Mateen the second is no John Wayne, it’s not traditionally the guy at the top of the billing. And that’s why it’s so inspiring to people. I get messages all the time saying, ‘Thank you brother for representing for us Muslims. I was thinking about changing my name, but now that I see you, I’ll never change it"

"For a lot of aspiring actors and artists around the world, America is the destination, the comparison"

"I got off to a really fast start ... I kind of just skyrocketed out of graduate school"

"It's important to listen to Black women because they got the answers"

"There was such a wide variety of subject matter that it kept me on the hook. That was something that I could call my friends and family and talk about. I feel like television and film were very important over quarantine; for me, that became a way to connect to other people. And instead of talking about sports or talking about whatever event was going on, or where we were going—the variety of things that can happen in a day—my conversations, a lot of the time, switched to television"

"So to have my name at the top of the billing on my own for Candyman, right up there on Aquaman, and next to Keanu Reeves in a big production like The Matrix is huge. To be validated, to hold my own, and to go on talk shows where they say my entire name, that’s inspiring"

"I saw a lot of people validate the history of trauma in this country, and the ways in which a traumatic event can happen to someone in one generation, and two generations later you see their offspring or their grandchildren still dealing with that. To me, that idea is very important to legitimize because we live in a society, in America specifically, that is so much in a rush to move past all the dark parts of its history. There’s so much of a rush to just put that behind us, that it often causes us to ignore, to not deal with it. And it causes us to not be able to realize the way that we still perpetuate it and create an environment for that trauma to continue to exist and persist"

"So I dedicate this award to all the Black women in my life"

"It's 1:00 a.m., and I'm trying to get her to be quiet, but she's still screaming, so I just stopped and let her walk"

"The people who believed in me first — I call you my early investors. I love you. I appreciate you. And this one is for you. Thank you"

"We need people like myself with a platform to continue to speak out and to be standing and doing the right thing. And so sometimes I question whether or not I’m doing the right thing by being away from America right now. I donate my money, my time. I use my platform to amplify others’ voices, and sometimes that feels like it isn’t enough. I want to be on the ground. The people I love, my family, my close friends, the Black women in my life—they tell me to be kind to myself, to stay informed, and to stay ready. So that’s what I try to do for now"

"There was this collective curiosity that I didn’t even know was there. Historic disenfranchisement kept those resources out of reach to the point that many believed that our rejection of therapy was primarily cultural. I’m glad to see this narrative changing. We’ve got a lot of internal healing to do in this world, and therapy is going to be a big part of that. With the right relationship, therapy can be a safe space where we can be heard and seen in a world that too often chooses not to hear or see us"