Quotes About Opportunity

Where is it written that the Olympics are only for winners?

I'm absolutely open to scripts written by someone else.

People are so used to men playing these amazing roles that they sometimes can't even see that there is no reason it has to be a man other than it was written that way - this is true for diversity in general.

No one should be written off because of their background. This is a moral proposition but it is also an important political lesson.

Playing dysfunctional characters or crazy characters is only fun if they're well written. So I have been lucky enough to be asked to play crazy people who are very well written.

There is no dearth of talented lyricists and I know many of them don't get an opportunity. After I received success, many of them approached me via e-mail or phone calls to tell me about their work. If I feel that a song written by a lyricist is fit for a film on which I am working as a composer, I give them the break.

I started with Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee and Lou Gossett, Jr. and the rest of the wonderful cast of 'A Raisin In The Sun.' We were directed by the great Lloyd Richards. The play was written by the wonderful Lorraine Hansberry, and it was produced by Phil Rose. That's where my start was, so... not a bad way to start.

My very first acting job was with Alan Parker on' Angela's Ashes,' but as a child, I had written to so many other productions just applying for any role. I always wanted to be an actress, and I did loads of acting summer schools.

One wrong move, and you destroy your career.

If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.

Sometimes, lovely surprises come out of things going wrong.

I never took a path that was the usual path for someone in my generation. A lot of the women who I went to school with, in those days, it was still the track of becoming a teacher, becoming a nurse. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I didn't go down that path.

So much of life is not about whether you're good or bad, or right or wrong, or can afford or not afford - it's just about timing.

What's wrong with being elitist if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?

You can try to make the right decision all the time, but it's better to just make a decision. I have done wrong so many times, but nine times out of 10, I have learned from my failure. Don't wait for something; just go for it.

Philly ain't a good environment for you when you headed in a different direction. Bad things happen left and right. You might walk up the street, make a wrong turn, and your whole life could flip.

People get the wrong idea. They think because somebody's visible and works to a degree in some kind of consistent way, they just have a pile of choices. And that's not necessarily true. You can always choose not to audition and see what happens. Sometimes that's a benefit. But most things that I do, I meet on, especially films.

We all have these challenges and stereotypes that exist, but you can't let that hold you down... If that's the first thing you think about as a black woman - the challenge that lies ahead - you are thinking in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

You could have everything right but be in the wrong place. You think your business is no good, but really, the problem is your place is no good.

To me, there's so much talent in the world that's locked out for the wrong reasons, whether it's innovators at the highest end where we need to change the regulation systems, or whether it's the talented people who work here who the bureaucracy's holding back, or the amazing American people.

A lot of people said I left Nottingham Forest for the wrong reasons, but that wasn't true. I wanted to play for a top team like Chelsea.

Well, I think that there's a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you're likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.

I always say that countries that keep women in the backseat will always end up on the wrong side of history.

When I met Raj Kundra for the first time, I thought my whole life would change. I thought I'd get big breaks. I never thought Shilpa Shetty's husband would make me do wrong things.