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You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.

Viola Davis

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Viola Davis
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: August 11
Actress
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Television Producer
St. Matthews
South Carolina
La Viola Davis
Destiny
Dreams
Please
Everyone
Else
Cannot
Edify
Dream
Fulfill
Live
Educate

More quotes by Viola Davis

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They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.
Viola Davis
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I would love to star in a remake of Thelma and Louise. Yep, that's the one I'd be interested in redoing.
Viola Davis
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I've done a really bad job with teaching daughter to put on makeup, but I have taught her how to put on lipstick.
Viola Davis
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For me, that was a hard scene [in Fences] to do twenty-something times, which (laughing), I counted. That was difficult, but once I did it, I felt like I could do anything.
Viola Davis
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Tyler Perry's 'Madea Goes to Jail!' Which, I have to tell you, of everything that I've ever done in my career, that's the only thing that's perked up the ears of my nieces and nephews. That is it, that's done it for them. That made me a bona fide star in their eyes!
Viola Davis
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I think that's why August [Wilson] named her Rose [in Fences] I really do. She's a rose in her sweetness and her kindness and in everything else, even her anger towards the end.
Viola Davis
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All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.
Viola Davis
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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
Viola Davis
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Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.
Viola Davis
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Even when I go shopping, I don't shop as a woman. The only time I shop is when I need something, and I'm in and out in less than 30 minutes, so I have no energy to look at 50 million gowns and styles and make sketches and think about heels. I'm not girly in that way. I'm relying on the stylist to do 99 percent of the work.
Viola Davis
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I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.
Viola Davis
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I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent
Viola Davis
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And classically not beautiful is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
Viola Davis
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You absolutely feel, as a black actress, that you've got to ride the wave because there's just so few roles. I hate to play that card, but it's the truth. There's not a lot of roles.
Viola Davis
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I've been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you're comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone's going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity.
Viola Davis
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Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
Viola Davis
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The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity.
Viola Davis
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I am the mother of a 6-year-old now, so that's changed my entire perspective.
Viola Davis
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One of the people I've always wanted to emulate in pursuing that dream was Meryl Streep, in terms of the different types of roles she's been able to play and the number of different stories she's been able to tell.
Viola Davis
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[I listen to] Uptown Funk, Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress - I listen to that.
Viola Davis