Quotes from Jenifer Lewis

Don't think you're going to be happy when you get something. You have to be happy on your way to happy.

You don't want to wait until something horrible happens to get help. Admit that something's not right. You might not know exactly what, but you still want to go get it checked out.

I had been a hurricane all my life. And that was, of course, because I was bipolar and did not know it. And I was - you know, the mania took control. When you're on stage and when you're performing, you're heightened, and it's an extreme.

Love yourself, so that love will not be a stranger when it comes

I don't have any beauty shop memories. I remember the barber shop.

If you don't love it, don't touch it.

I'm a classically trained actress, and I have many levels and colors, and 'Ventura Boulevard' is where I am planning to stretch and grow.

Whoopi and I have been friends ever since she claimed she couldn't sing on the set of Sister Act.

It's important to be alive in those moment, especially when you're doing something you love to do.

Apart from being Jennifer Lewis. The name pulls people in.

I've been burn when it comes to my hair that it ain't no joke.

I've been keeping a journal since I was in the seventh grade.

A diva is someone who pretends to know who she is and looks fabulous doing it.

Saturday night is when my hair would be fixed up and that was my memory.

I know what mental illness looks like, and I know that if a person is not ready to get help, they won't.

It's important to e alive in those moment, especially when you're doing something you love to do.

I'm very humbled by the fact that I do have so much to say, and I just hope that my walk, my honesty, will make a difference for people and maybe motivate them.

I think my performance in 'What's Love Got to Do With It' was powerful. I was so unafraid and confident. You know, it was the first mother of black Hollywood. I was Tina Turner's mama. That's what started it all. I had fallen in love right before that movie, and I had absolutely no fear in me.

I don't leave a room unless I leave a smile. I want to leave them laughing.

'Black-ish' is the cherry on the top of my career... When you come into your own, when you're in your skin, you're unstoppable, because you're living in the moment of life.

Pay attention to your friends; pay attention to that cousin that jumps up on the picnic table at the family reunion and goes a little too 'nutty,' you know what I mean? Pay attention to that aunt that's down in the basement that never comes upstairs. We have to pay attention to our friends, pay attention to your family, and offer a hand.

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.

Sometimes I think I take on a lot of work but that's me.

I was gifted at birth with this talent, and I've tried to honor it all my life. And I did - through hell and storms and tsunamis and earthquakes. I've been through too much not to know that giving back is everything.