Kerry Washington famous quotes

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Positive #Beautiful #Journey

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!
-- Kerry Washington

#College #Islands #Volunteer

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Long #Humanity #Definitions

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Badass #Voice #Light

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Thinking #Actors #Instruments

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

#Adventure #Journey #Purpose

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Believe #Heart #Eye

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Live Life #Writing #Voice

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

#Art #People #Engagement

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Mother #Rights #Equal Pay

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Women #Self #People

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Family #Work #Health

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

#Unique #Imperfection #Celebrate

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Django #Cost #Stories

I have a deep, deep love for sneakers.
-- Kerry Washington

#Deep Love #Sneakers

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Girl #Growing Up #Smart

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Daughter #Grateful #Thinking

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

#New York #Acting #Cameras

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Sexy #Thinking #People

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Forever #Way #Milk

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

#Thinking About You #Thinking #May

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Writing #Rights #Stories

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Believe #Moving #Thinking

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Children #Taken #Men

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Cities #Boards #Ongoing

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Support #Directors #Different

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?
-- Kerry Washington

#Mom #Writing #Students

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

#Girl #Dream #Real

You can be the lead in your own life.
-- Kerry Washington

#Lead In

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

#Healing #People #Way

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Gay #Thinking #Men

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Badass #School #Thinking About You

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Country #Gay #Thinking

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Mother #Children #School

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Jobs #Character #Cooking

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

#Art #Students #Art Education

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Race #Who I Am #World

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Hero #Character #Acceptance

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Girl #Color #Pockets

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Believe #Positive Thinking #Important

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Order #Color #People

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?
-- Kerry Washington

#Heart #Healthy #Brain

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Women #People #Understanding

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Writing #People #Choices

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Party #Thinking #Air

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!
-- Kerry Washington

#Wind #Different #Machines

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Hate #Kids #Racism

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Reading #Writing #Years

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.
-- Kerry Washington

#Character #Race #Views

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

#Character #Acting #Moments

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 .
-- Kerry Washington

#Color #Ideas #Community