Quotes from Lupita Nyong'o

There have been rumors and rumors and rumors about my love life. That's the one area that I really like to hold close to my heart.

What colonialism does is cause an identity crisis about one's own culture.

I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings.

I hope we can form a community where a woman can speak up about abuse and not suffer another abuse by not being believed and instead being ridiculed.

Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'

No matter where you're from, your dreams are valid.

What I've learned from myself is that I don't have to be anybody else. Myself is good enough.

Happiness is the most important thing.

I was raised in Kenya, and I always wanted to be an actor from when I was really, really little, but the first time I thought it was something that I could make a career of was when I watched 'The Color Purple.' I think I was nine, maybe, and I saw people that looked like me - Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

I went to an all-boys high school, and they accepted girls in only the two A.P. classes.

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet.

And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned.

I thought I was going to school to be other people, but really, what I learned was to be myself - accepting myself, my strengths and weaknesses.

Being considered a fashion star is wonderful. It's definitely a bonus thing.

I always envisioned working in film and in theater. Theater and film are not, they're not in any way substitutable. What I love about theater is so different from what I love about film, and I enjoy the craft of both.

I loved make-believe. I was the child in the cupboard playing with my Barbies.

I grew up in the limelight and being the child of someone famous. So my relationship with fame is not bedazzled.

That's such a powerless place for me to think about: what is working against me. I don't think of what I don't have; I think of what I do and use that to get the next thing.

There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.

Personally, I don't ever want to depend on makeup to feel beautiful.

I grew up in a world where the majority of people were black, so that wasn't the defining quality of anyone. When you're describing someone, you don't start out with 'he's black, he's white.'

I feel privileged that people are looking up to me, and perhaps a dream will be born because of my presence.