Quotes from Jurnee Smollett-Bell

I can get a little scattered and want to be everywhere and want to do everything for everyone.

There's a lot of progress happening in TV. You have amazing shows like 'How to Get Away With Murder.' You have people like Shonda Rhimes, Lee Daniels with 'Empire,' and Jason Katims with 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Parenthood.' You have people behind the scenes writing complex women.

Never let anyone silence your voice.

It is a beautiful thing to work on your relationship.

My best advice would be that you have to be vulnerable with each other. Like, everyone says you have to be honest, you have to communicate; like, yes, of course, but you gotta be willing to be vulnerable.

Injustice is either very blatant - you walk down the street and someone calls you a name; you don't get a job because of your gender or your skin color or your sexual preference - but injustice is also very subliminal.

My little brothers loved baseball. I'm not as big on that as basketball or football, but I understand the game.

I'm very picky about the kind of work that I do, and I'm fortunate to have been able to work with great directors and great actors who've helped me grow as an artist.

I just live my life. I go where I feel God is calling me.

Part of an ensemble show is realizing it's a collaboration. It's like a symphony. Everybody takes their turn, but it's really the collective group that matters.

I'm such a huge fan of Gap! My mom used to dress me in Gap overalls that I would wear all the time, and now the idea of bringing my son into that tradition is so ironic and full-circle for me.

I don't really think about the critics or the commercial success.

My siblings are so talented. My sister's a producer, and my brothers and I all write.

I'm very grateful to have been able to work with so many talented filmmakers and actors during my career. I've learned so much from them. It's been my college, in a way.

There's still a really divisive residue in our nation that's called racism and prejudice and oppression and sexism.

We all try to pretend we're the person we want to be when we're really not, and you've just gotta be willing to say, 'Here are all my flaws; here's who I am - take it or leave it. If you love me still, then let's do this.'

It's not very exciting to go to work to just have your character's identity being defined by her relationship with her male counterparts.

I'm told I'm a statistic. I'm told that my young black sisters are disease-ridden... but we are greater than what society tells us we are.

'Full House' was the first time I had ever been in front of a live audience. I said a line I had rehearsed with my mom, and they laughed. It was wild. To have that energy of the live audience was like, Whaaat? Feeding off that live audience was, to a 4 or 5 year old, a high.

I wouldn't even call myself a former child star. I was a child actor; there's a difference.

Vanessa Williams in person is like... the camera cannot capture how gorgeous this woman is! She is just so breathtaking.

We used to play touch football, where you put the little rag in your pocket. I was good because I was fast. I wasn't the greatest at catching. Sometimes the ball would come so hard and fast that it'd knock the wind out of me.

There's something about driving through Texas, and it's hot, your skin is sticking to you. The environment affects your attitude and your swagger.

I'm a research queen.