Quotes About Empowerment

Acting's incredibly enjoyable, but sometimes it doesn't feel quite enough. I've also written a script about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. This will make me sound like a female Kenneth Branagh, but I can't think of anything nicer than directing myself from a script I wrote.

Those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences - they are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.

We don't want to be our own niche. We're filmmakers like everybody. How many years in a row are we going to talk about the fact that we make films and we are women? Enough already.

Some Nickelodeon executives were worried about backing an animated action show with a female lead character. Conventional TV wisdom has it that girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won't watch shows about girls. During test screenings, though, boys said they didn't care that Korra was a girl. They just said she was awesome.

When Nickelodeon, in 2009, told us they wanted us to come back and do another series where we could do whatever we wanted, the first thought we had was: Let's do a story about the next 'Avatar.' That was the first thought. The second thought was: Let's make it a girl.

I can't talk about the education of black children if I ignored two of my nieces who were a couple of grade levels behind. I believe that charity begins at home, and I take seriously the role of a godfather to fill the gap when the parents aren't doing their job.

If you go to the part of Nigeria I'm from, people will say 'why is colonialism my concern?'

With a name like Cush Jumbo, you never get forgotten. The 'Jumbo' is from my father, who is Nigerian, and 'Cush' was a king in ancient Egypt. It's a name that took a few years to grow into, but now I feel it was meant to be. It's absolutely who I am, and I love it.

I am the executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is the country's only national immigrant rights organization for black immigrants and African Americans. Being the daughter of Nigerian immigrants really drove me to do this type of work.

When I go out, I'm not going out to find a man; I'm going out to dance the night away with my best friends.

I think I always knew aesthetically what excited me the most, and I think I was always looking for that aesthetic in other people and it didn't really happen. I decided to take it upon myself to be the change I wanted to see in nightlife.

I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete ever.

What I want is to be the highest grossing screenwriter, or to have some other woman be the highest grossing screenwriter, instead of being number nine on the list. That's my goal.

I loved Fugazi, the D.C. hardcore band, because they always did everything themselves. They had their own label, and the CDs always cost nine dollars, the T-shirts always cost eight dollars, the shows always cost five dollars, no major label.

I got my first relaxer when I was nine years old. This was in the '90s, and I convinced my mom to let me perm my hair so I could wear a French roll with the crimps in the front.

At Shondaland, six out of nine writers were of color - not Latinx, but I was like, 'Wait, I can do that but for the whole room?' 'Atlanta' had done that, then I can do that.

There's absolutely no boundaries in dressing for any size, ever.

Theoretically, I have no business starting an organization called Girls Who Code, because I don't code.

If a woman is saying something out loud, she is asking for help, and you have no business to character assassinating her. You have to reach out to her and help her and protect her, and I think we need to protect our women, and we need to protect our children.

Hateful words stand no chance against self-worth and a little of humor.

I think you manifest what you believe, and when you believe that you have no choice you lose choice.

I wrote 'Milk' for me. I wrote it for the younger version of me that had no clue that there are people who'd ever fought for my rights.

Where I am now, you're very much at everybody else's mercy. You have no control over your career in a lot of ways. It's just important to know what your own goals are, because that's empowering.

For women to comment on other women is making it a lot harder for us all to feel confident. And it's hard enough to feel confident when you have no control over your body.