Quotes About Empowerment

The first time I shopped at a comic shop, it was because I had been published in a comic book. As I became more involved in comics, I started going more and more, usually to support my friends or lady-friendly comics.

I'm fortunate that I have a female publisher, and her boss is a man of color. My world is a little more diverse, but the majority of the business is not diverse at all.

Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women.

When I realized that I can invest in my own marketing and do exactly what I think needs to be done - well, then it just feels like, what is the benefit of having a publisher?

The paradox of being in an industry where other people are usually the gatekeepers: publishers, editors - there are a lot of barriers to having control over your career. But coming out of hip-hop, the mindset was always to create your own.

In 1976, I read a book by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and knew immediately that I, too, could write a historical romance. It took me a year to complete the manuscript. I was a forty-year-old Scarborough housewife who knew no one in publishing.

I should have my own publishing companies.

I think what we need, especially in publishing, is more commissioning editors and editors who are people of colour.

We need more people working in the publishing industry itself who are people of colour.

For the most part, it's straight white men running these labels and publishing companies.

Johnson Publishing has been built on filling a need for African-Americans. This is what's happening with E Style. There was nothing that addressed the specific needs of African-American women.

I'm working on my own work, my own publishing company.

I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house.

Certain roles for older women are aimed at certain older actresses - I'm not one of those. I've been offered any number of Puerto Rican grandmas that I've turned down.

In terms of the revolution, I believe that the revolution will be a revolution of dispossessed people in this country: that's the Mexican American, the Puerto Rican American, the American Indian, and black people.

Umm... I don't judge my relationship with Puff or Bad Boy according to other people or past artists. At the end of the day, you are in charge of your career, and you can't depend on no man to do anything for you. I've learned to judge relationships with a person on myself and that person, not what they have done with previous people.

Curvy girls can pull off any look - it's what we do.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he'd say, 'Boss, we've got this, and that, and the other thing.' And I'd look at him and I'd say, 'Good.'

You have to really understand that although certain memories or stories make you sad, you are not sad. Pull yourself out from that emotion and remember that.

Nobody can pull you down more than you.

You have to have the courage to pull the company up and force them to change and move.

One of the things people learn with me is I don't need to pull someone else down to build myself up, and I will live and die by that rule.

It's hard for the same people who put you in the ditch to pull you out of it.

I think that it'd be nice for other Asians to support other Asian artists and help each other instead of pull each other down.