Quotes About Diversity

As a little girl growing up in Southside Jamaica Queens, if anyone would've told me I'd have my own perfume one day, and be able to inspire young black girls everywhere, to go into Macy's or Nordstrom's and see their face staring back at them - I wouldn't believe them.

I like to tell myself people look at me for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they're staring because they're shocked or maybe they recognise me from TV, or maybe they just like my shoes - especially women, because we all look at each other's clothes and hair.

I have been brought up open-minded. If I didn't know any people from other countries, I'd think everyone was evil based on news stories. But I know a lot of people, and know that there is no such thing as stark good and evil. Isn't it possible there is the same amount of evil everywhere?

So many people, including stark conservatives, have family members and close friends who are gay.

I am conscious that each film I do is in stark contrast to the earlier one.

My character in 'Ivan Thanthiran' is in stark contrast to my role in 'U Turn.' Here, I play Asha, a hard working girl belonging to a middle-class background.

Titus belongs to 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' Titus Andromedon. Tituss Burgess couldn't be more different. I get how people think I'm one and the same, but I just don't live there. I'm nothing like that man, and whatever I would do wouldn't be in stark contrast just because, but because I'm in stark contrast, it would be different.

If you have not had direct firsthand experience of loving a category of person - a person of a different race, a profoundly religious person, things that are real stark differences between people - I think it is very hard to dare, or necessarily even want, to write fully from the inside of a person.

There are very few really stark black and white stories.

If you listen to one of my albums, you can tell I do a lot of different things. In the case of 'Vincent', I thought of his picture 'Starry Night.' It was a beautiful road-map for a song. I used a lot of imagery from that painting.

We are all stars in this galaxy. All of us. No one's greater than the other.

As a kid, my parents would always listen to a lot of Beatles, Queen, Elvis. My mom was born and raised in Italy, and my dad was born in Canada and moved back and forth between Canada and Italy, so they would also listen to all the big Italian stars like Eros Ramazzotti, Gigi D'Alessio, Tiziano Ferro, Laura Pausini.

All of us '60s pop stars came from old cities which had a jazz club, a folk club, a coffee house, and an art school.

It's very difficult today for girls to become supermodels. There is a lot more competition, a lot of countries in the East have opened up so there are many more models than there were in the Nineties. Now they have to compete with famous actresses but also with, say, reality stars to be on the magazine covers.

You have film actors doing TV, rap stars doing TV, with everyone kind of crossing the line.

An orchestra full of stars can be a disaster.

We can now have action movies with two stars where one might be African American and one might be Asian American. One of them doesn't have to be white, and the other one doesn't have to be the ethnic sidekick. We're way over that. And I think it's happening in society, too.

Maybe it took a little time, or we're a little late, but finally we're recognizing that international stars are fantastic. They're the greatest actors in the world, and few people know that.

There's enough music in the world. There are enough rock stars.

I could care less if it's Mick Jagger or the man on the street. I just like interesting people, and I happen to know a lot of stars.

When I started modeling, it was like, 'Oh, she's too dark,' and I kind of looked at them like, 'You're too daft.'

I appear African-American, so it's not until I start talking that people go, 'Hold on, there's something not right here.' But it's an awesome conversation starter. I open my mouth, they get curious, and I say, 'Got a few minutes? Have a seat.'

For starters, I wanted to do an acting role in a movie that had nothing to do with the music business or in which I would play a singer or a songwriter. When I act, I don't even want to be thought of as Ne-Yo.

I think that we're starting to allow ourselves to imagine that gender doesn't have to be binary, sexuality doesn't have to be binary, and you are allowed to choose who you love, how you behave, and how you dress.