Quote

Knowing the only way out is education, even if you don't have parents that are extraordinarily wealthy. I understand that I have to be an active participant in [my daughter's] education in order for her to thrive in the world.

Viola Davis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Education
Extraordinarily
Knowing
Participants
Understand
Thrive
Order
Wealthy
Even
Active
Way
Daughter
World
Parents
Parent
Participant

More quotes by Viola Davis

Image
Ultimately, it's not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people's expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.
Viola Davis
Image
I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out.
Viola Davis
Image
Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
Viola Davis
Image
As an artist, you've got to see the mess. That's what we do. We get a human being, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty.
Viola Davis
Image
If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it.
Viola Davis
Image
I just hope this [Emmy] is now a part of the status quo that women of color are included in the narratives that continue to write lead roles for us.
Viola Davis
Image
You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.
Viola Davis
Image
Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
Viola Davis
Image
But along with all of that it was, Oh, isn't he a great storyteller? Oh, it's that why I married him? Isn't he handsome? Oh, what am I going to make for dinner today? I put all of that as a part of [Roses's from Fences] inner everyday monologue so, by the time he tells he that news and all of that I feel that it's there already.
Viola Davis
Image
The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, You change the school, you change the community. I couldn't wrap my mind around that.
Viola Davis
Image
I don't have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn't love me has to say about me.
Viola Davis
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Relationships change us and make us grow.
Viola Davis
Image
I look back at pictures of myself and I remember thinking, I was so fat when I was growing up. I was 165 pounds when I graduated from high school. I was a mess.
Viola Davis
Image
And classically not beautiful is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
Viola Davis
Image
No matter what, people don't think of me for glamorous parts. I'll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.
Viola Davis
Image
The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you.
Viola Davis
Image
I am the mother of a 6-year-old now, so that's changed my entire perspective.
Viola Davis
Image
People often forget our emotional contribution to relationships and to marriage and that might be a completely sexist comment but, what I tried not to do [in Fences] is, I tried to just put that monologue as part of my stream of consciousness.
Viola Davis