Quotes from Gabourey Sidibe

I have a birthmark on the inside of my left knee that resembles an upside-down sea horse.

I used to watch 'Coming to America' every day after school. I have full-on long-running inside jokes with friends and family about different scenes in that movie alone. Also, my brother and I loved 'The Golden Child,' so, yeah: I was a huge fan of Eddie Murphy growing up.

I've grown up with girls that are like Precious. I've grown up with people that are like everyone that I read about in that book. And so years later, when I was given the role, I just felt a huge responsibility to show the reality of that situation and to show that we're not making it up.

I certainly used to wish that I was skinny, lighter-skinned, with long, pretty hair. But only because I used to get made fun of for being the absolute opposite. I didn't see all of that stuff as the American Dream. I just wanted to look normal. Now that I'm older, I really do feel like I am a beautiful girl.

I am the only consistent person in my life and so I better like myself, and I better love myself. And I really better know that I'm as beautiful as anyone else.

Mo'Nique is so full of love. I've been describing her as the tree in 'Pocahontas.' She's so wise and loving. She is just everything.

Precious, she gets hit by life so many different ways and so many times, but she doesn't yield to it. She continues to get up and she continues to struggle for a better life.

Your body is your temple, it's your home, and you must decorate it.

I'm not a big fan of doing what my mother wants me to do, like any daughter.

I'm really, really interested in the job of acting. I can really care less about being famous. I'm more about the work, and 'The Big C' was amazing, so I wanted to be a part of it.

Well, I'm certainly glad that I was nominated for an Oscar. There is certainly a respect that comes with that nod. Also, a compliment that comes with it, too. Not that I really know what I'm doing. In a lot of ways I feel like some child on set, or like a kid that snuck in the back door.

One of my favorite - well, my favorite, favorite, absolute favorite event to go to is Alfre Woodard has a party that I call the blacktress party. It's, like, black actresses that either have been nominated for an Oscar or should have been, and it sort of is just a night where we all get in a room and we get to celebrate each other.

Being an actress wasn't a plan at all, so what's happened to me is very strange. Life isn't very normal, even though I'm still very much a normal girl. I ride the subway, I ride the bus, and all of that.

But at the time I thought that if I could just get the world to see me the way I saw myself then my body wouldn't be the thing you walked away thinking about. I wouldn't be that fat girl.