Viola Davis Quotes

My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don’t have to live in the past. I found that not only did I have fight in me, I had love.

I now understand that life, and living it, is more about being present. I’m now aware that the not-so-happy memories lie in wait; but the hope and the joy also lie in wait.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a different past. They tell you successful therapy is when you have the big discovery that your parents did the best they could with what they were given.

Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth.

May you live long enough to know why you were born.” —CHEROKEE BIRTH BLESSING

He is sorry- For everything- For Prentisstown- For Viola- For Ben- For every failure and every wrong- For letting his pa down- And he's looking up at me- And he's begging me- He's begging me- Like I'm the only one who can forgive him- Like it's only me who's got the power- Todd?- Please- And all I can say is "Davy-" And the fright and the terror in his Noise is too much- It's too much- And then it stops. Davy slumps, eyes still open, eyes still staring back at me, eyes still asking (I swear) for me to forgive him. And he lies there, still. Davy Prentiss is dead.

I knew my life would be a fight, and I realized this: I had it in me.

It’s futile to ask why. Instead ask yourself, ‘What did I learn from this?’” What have I learned from all of it? There is absolutely no way whatsoever to get through this life without scars.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

May you live long enough to know why you were born.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a different past.

Everything had been hard for me. I mastered hard. Now, I wanted joy.

Quoting Viola Davis (who is sharing rules she lives by): '4. I will not be a mystery to my daughter. She will know me and I will share my stories with her—the stories of failure, shame, and accomplishment. She will know she’s not alone in that wilderness.

As soon as he came into my life, my life got better because I created a family with him, with someone who loved me. I was no longer solely defined by the family that raised me and my childhood memories.

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.

Your only job as an artist is to put the truth out there into the world.

Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye says that “a person’s love is only as good as the person; a stupid person loves stupidly, a violent man loves violently.

And whereas I can’t live inside yesterday’s pain, I can’t live without it.

(Quoting Viola Davis) I will not be a mystery to my daughter. She will know me and I will share my stories with her—the stories of failure, shame, and accomplishment. She will know she’s not alone in that wilderness.

Taking off the wig in HTGAWM was my duty to honor Black women by not showing an image that is palatable to the oppressor, to people who have tarnished, punished the image of Black womanhood for so long. It said all of who we are is beautiful. Even our imperfections.

When you’re poor, you live in an alternate reality. It’s not that we have problems different from everyone else, but we don’t have the resources to mask them. We’ve been stripped clean of social protocol.

learned the hard way that when there are underlying issues, money does nothing. In fact, money exacerbates the problem because it takes away the individual’s ability to be held accountable.

I could create my own family and I could create it intentionally with what I had learned.

Show me the hero. Show me the tragedy. Heroes always cause their own downfalls. I didn't want to be a hero.

Or perhaps we should just ask Todd." I pound the glass right at his face. He doesn't even flinch. And then she says, "Todd would never tell you. Never." And the Mayor just looks at me. And he smiles My stomach sinks, my heart drops, my head feels so light I feel like I'm going to drop right to the ground. Oh, Viola- Viola, please- Forgive me. "Captain Hammar," the Mayor says and Viola's plunged into the water again, unable to not scream out in fright as down she goes. "NO!" I shout, pressing myself against the mirror. But the Mayor ain't even looking at her. He's looking right at me, as if he could see me even if I was behind a brick wall. "STOP IT!" I shout as she's thrashing again- And more- And more- "VIOLA!" And I'm pounding even tho my hands are breaking- And Mr. Hammar is grinning and holding her there- "VIOLA!" And her wrist are starting to bleed from where she's pulling- "I'LL KILL YOU!"- I'm shouting into the Mayor's face- With all my Noise- "I'LL KILL YOU!"- And still holding her there- "VIOLA! VIOLA!"- But it's Davy- Of all people- It's Davy who stops it.

Free, I think. They're free. (is this why she joined them?) I feel so- So relieved. I pick up the pace as I near the opening, my hands gripping my rifle but I have a feeling I ain't gonna need it. (ah, Viola, I knew I could count-) Then I reach the opening and stop. Everything stops. My stomach falls right thru my feet. "They're all gone?" Davy says, coming up beside me. Then he see what I see. "What the-?" Davy says. The Spackle ain't all gone. They're still here. Every single one. All 1150 of them. Dead.

Remember the love. . . . Don’t play the pain and betrayal, play the woman fighting hard to restore the love.

There is no way out. Every painful memory, every mentor, every foe served as a chisel. A led path that has shaped me. Me. The imperfect but blessed sculpture Viola that still being chiseled. My elixir: I am no longer ashamed of myself. I own everything that happened to me.

Mr Davis was a middle class tremble of a man worried about an unseemly display and his Jerry Springer moment

There was an expectation of perfectionism without the knowledge of emotional well-being.

Courage is the cure.

It is a widely held belief that dark-skinned women just don't do it for a lot of Black men. It's a mentality rooted in both racism and misogyny, that you have no value as a woman if you do not turn them on, if you are not desirable to them. It's ingrained thinking, dictated by oppression.

That’s what he asked me next. It was a big moment for me. I said, “No, but I’m doing the work. I’m in therapy. I’ve gotta clean things up before I can invite anyone into my life to love me.

When my dad passed, part of my heart went with him that’s never coming back. I feel the same way about Julius. I feel the same way about my child, my mom, sisters. It’s one heart. They are completely entwined in my spirit.

had no understanding that there would be hard times and then joy would come, or sometimes the shoe would fall, but failing wasn’t permanent. None of that emotionally healthy thinking was instilled in me. I only understood secrets, suppression, succeeding at all costs, overachieving. You make it or you don’t. You either sink or you swim.

The obstacle blocking me was a four-hundred-year-old racist system of oppression and my own feeling of utter aloneness.

Success pales in comparison to healing.

You'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse,' Denzel Washington often said as we worked together on 'Fences.' 'I don't care how much money you have or what level of notoriety you've achieved, you can't take any of it with you.' There is a cap on earthly success, a ceiling on the amount of joy that possessions and awards can bring before disillusionment sets in. Our appearance, our prosperity, the applause: all of it is so fleeting. But a life of true significance has unlimited impact. It is measured in how well we've loved those around us, how much we've given away, how many seeds we've sown along our path. During her ninety-six years, Ms. [Cicely] Tyson has discovered the potent elixir: she has lived a life of that is bigger than she is, an existence grounded in purpose and flourishing in service to others. That is her defining masterpiece. That is her enduring gift to us all. [Viola Davis, Foreword]

We are after all observers of life. We are after all a conduit, a channeler of people. What you haven’t resolved in your life can absolutely become an obstacle in the work that you do.

I’m no longer ashamed of me. I own everything that has ever happened to me. The parts that were a source of shame are actually my warrior fuel. I see people—the way they walk, talk, laugh, and grieve, and their silence—in a way that is hyperfocused because of my past. I’m an artist because there’s no separation from me and every human being that has passed through the world including my mom.

I was sold lies for two years and the worst part is that I believed it because I couldn't combat it with anything else.

Luck is an elusive monster who chooses when to come out of its cave to strike and who will be its recipient. It’s a business of deprivation.

When I look back at what I’ve seen, my only thoughts are that it’s amazing how much a human body can endure.

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for." —Thomas Merton

Who told you that?" I say. "Davy Prentiss?" He blinks. "What?" "What do you mean what?" My voice is harder now. "Your new best friend. The man who shot me, Todd, and who you ride to work with laughing every morning." He clenches his hands into fists. "You've been spying on me?" he says. "Three months I don't see you, three months I don't hear nothing from you and you been spying? Is that what yer doing in your spare time when yer not blowing people up?" "Yeah," I yell, my voice getting louder to match his. "Three months of defending you to people who'd only be too happy to call you enemy, Todd. Three months of wondering why the hell you're working so hard for the Mayor and how he knew to go right for the ocean the day after we spoke." He winces, but I keep going, thrusting out my arm and pulling up on the sleeve. "Three months wondering why you put these on women!" His face changes in an instant. He actually calls out as if he felt the pain himself. He puts a hand to his mouth to stifle it but his Noise is suddenly washed with blackness. He moves his fingertips of his other hand within reach of the band, hovering over my skin, over the band that'll never be removed unless I lose my arm. The skin is still red, and band 1391 still trobs, despite the healing of three mistresses. "Oh, no," he says. "Oh, no." The side door opens and the man who let me in leans out. "Everything all right out there, Lieutenant?" "Lieutenant?" I say. "We're fine," Todd chokes a little. "We're fine." The man waits for a second, then goes back inside. "Lieutenant?" I say again, lowering my voice. Todd's leant down, his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. "It wasn't me, was it?" he says, his voice quiet, too. "I didn't-" He gestures again at the band without looking up. "I didn't do it without knowing it was you, did I?

There's an unspoken message that the only stories worth telling are the stories that end up in history books. This is not true. Every story matters. My father's story matters. We are all worthy of telling out stories and having them heard. We all need to be seen and honored in the same way that we all need to breathe.

I often think about a statement Viola Davis made when she won her first Oscar. Something along the lines of encouraging people to go to the graveyard and dig up all the dead bodies in order to hear and tell the stories of those whose dreams were never realized. Those are the stories she’s interested in telling. Although that is valid, I must challenge it. This book is proof positive that you don’t need to go to the graveyard to find us. Many of us are still here. Still living and waiting for our stories to be told—to tell them ourselves. We are the living that have always been here but have been erased. We are the sons and brothers, daughters and sisters, and others that never get a chance to see ourselves nor to raise our voices to ears that need to hear them.

For a whole generation of Black people we were the dream. We were their hope. We were the baton they were passing as they were sinking into the quicksand of racism, poverty, Jim Crow, segregation, injustice, family trauma, and dysfunction.

Memories are immortal. They're deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that's based more in other people's tucked-up perceptions than truth.

It is a powerful memory because it was the first time my spirit and heart were broken.

We were “po.” That’s a level lower than poor. I’ve heard some of my friends say, “We were poor, too, but I just didn’t know it until I got older.” We were poor and we knew it.

The TV and film business is saturated with people who think they're writing something human when it's really a gimmick.

Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise.

Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you." -Viola Davis, Oscar-Winning Actress

The air in the room shifted again. Or was it the air in our lungs? It’s that life-changing thing that happens when you’re seen, valued, and adored. Adoration for girls validates our femininity. When you are a dark-skin girl, no one simply adores you. They laugh with you, tell you their secrets, treat you like one of the boys . . . but there’s no care given to you, no devotion given to you. The absence of that becomes an erasure.

What have I learned from all of it? There is absolutely no way whatsoever to get through life without scars. No way!! It's a friggin' emotional boxing ring, and either you go one round, four rounds, or forty rounds, depending on your opponent. And by God, if you opponent is you...you will go forty. If it's God, you'll barely go one because Big Daddy has a rope-dope down! He's a shape shifter. You think you're fighting him, screaming, punching, begging him for help. And he leaves you with...YOU.

The constantly being beaten down so much makes you begin to feel that you’re wrong. Not that you did wrong, but you were wrong. It makes you so angry at your abuser, the one that you’re too afraid to confront, so you confront the easiest target. Those you can. Until your heart gets tired. No one ever, up until that point, talked to us, asked us what our dreams were, asked us how we were feeling. It was on us to figure it out. There is an emotional abandonment that comes with poverty and being Black. The weight of generational trauma and having to fight for your basic needs doesn’t leave room for anything else. You just believe you’re the leftovers.

What does that mean?” I asked again. “Look, I’m always going to be that fifteen-year-old boy whose girlfriend broke up with him. That’s always going to be me. So, who are you?” Who am I? I was quiet, and once again that indestructible memory hit me. Then I just blurted it out. “I’m the little girl who would run after school every day in third grade because these boys hated me because I was . . . not pretty. Because I was . . . Black.” Will stared at me as if seeing me for the first time and just nodded. My throat got tight and I could feel the tears welling up. Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth.

If I created a fable of my life, a fantasy, I see myself finally meeting God, gushing, crying, thanking the Almighty for the accolades, a fabulous husband, beautiful daughter, my journey from nothing to Hollywood, awards, travel. I can clearly see the Lord’s face, staring at me, taking me in and saying, 'You never thanked me for creating you as YOU.

For every one actor who makes it to fame there are fifty thousand more who did exactly the same things, yet didn’t make it.

I was a powder cake of secrets. I kept them in because it allowed me to get through my day. I couldn't let what I was feeling out.

I’m no longer ashamed of me. I own everything that has ever happened to me. The parts that were a source of shame are actually my warrior fuel.

Being with that group of women who so easily gave up their vanity and just went for it was a huge learning curve for me.

I answered the call to adventure...

Why are you trying to heal her? I think she was pretty tough. She survived.

My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don't have to live in the past.

This was genius. This was art! Expression that is born out of the necessity of ritual to navigate life.

One of the beauties of getting older is really getting to know a parent.

The invisibility of the one-two punch that is Blackness and poverty is brutal. Mix that with being hungry all the damn time and it becomes combustible.

But even some of the mightiest of warriors have wounds that leave them debilitated.

Abuse elicits so many memories of trauma that embed themselves into behavior that is hard to shake. It could be something that happened forty years ago, but it remains alive, present.

They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth.

My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don’t have to live in the past. I found that not only did I have fight in me, I had love. By the time we clicked, I had had enough therapy and enough friendship and enough beautiful moments in my life to know what love is and what I wanted my life to feel and look like. When I got on my knees and I prayed to God for Julius, I wasn’t just praying for a man. I was praying for a life that I was not taught to live, but for something that I had to learn. That’s what Julius represented.

I am a dark-skinned woman. Culturally, there is a spoken and unspoken narrative rooted in Jim Crow. It tells us that dark-skinned women are simply not desirable. All the attributes that are attached to being a woman-desireable, vulnerable, needing to be rescued-don't apply to us. In the past we've been used as chattel, fodder for inhumane experimentation, and it has evolved into invisibility.

first ingredient I needed to be an artist, the power to create. The power of alchemy, that magical process of transformation and creation to believe at any given time I could be the somebody I always wanted to be.

The journey of a hero I learned from writer Joseph Campbell, that a hero is someone born into a world where they don’t fit in, they are then summoned on a call to an adventure that they are reluctant to take. What is the adventure? A revolutionary transformation of self the final goal is to find the elixir, the magic potion – that is the answer to unlocking her. Then she comes home to this ordinary life transformed and shares her story of survival with others.

Memories are immortal. They're deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in ways that's based more in other people's tucked-up perceptions than truth.

I think my dad just got tired of the anger, the rage, as an answer to his inner pain. Either you give yourself over to it in a sort of emotional suicide or you simply get it. What do I think he got? That he was loved. That he was needed. That he mattered. I believe he changed as a way of asking for our forgiveness.

What have I learned from all of it? There is absolutely no way whatsoever to get through this life without scars. No way!! It’s a friggin’ emotional boxing ring, and either you go one round, four rounds, or forty rounds, depending on your opponent. And by God, if your opponent is you . . . you will go forty. If it’s God, you’ll barely go one because Big Daddy has rope-a-dope down! He’s a shape-shifter. You think you’re fighting him, screaming, punching, begging him for help. And he leaves you with . . . YOU.

Here's the truth. If you have a choice between auditioning for a great role over a bad role, you are privileged. That means not only do you have a top agent who can get you in, you are at a level that you would be considered for it. Our profession at any given time has a 95 percent unemployment rate. Only 1 percent of actors are famous, and we won't get into defining famous. The 0.04 percent are the stories you read about in the media. 'Being picky,' 'dropping agents,' making far less than male counterparts. Never having any regrets in terms of roles they've taken. Yada, yada, yada.

For every one actor who makes it to fame there are fifty thousand more who did exactly the same things, yet didn't make it. Most of the actors I went with to Juilliard Rhode Island College, Circle in the Square Theatre, the Arts Recognition Talent Search competition are not in the business anymore. I think I can name six, and many, you wouldn't even know. It doesn't speak to their talent, it speaks to the nature of the business. Trust me when I say most were beautiful and talented, and some has incredible agents. It's an eenie, meenie, miny, mo game of luck, relationships, chance, how long you've been out there, and sometimes talent.

For my speaking gigs, the title of my presentation is always the same: 'The journey of a hero'. I learned from writer Joseph Campbell, that a hero is someone born into a world where they don’t fit in. They are then summoned on a call to an adventure that they are reluctant to take. What is the adventure? A revolutionary transformation of self. The final goal is to find the elixir. The magic potion that is the answer to unlocking HER. Then she comes "home" to this ordinary life transformed and shares her story of survival with others... My journey was like a war movie, where at the end, the hero has been bruised and bloodied, traumatized from witnessing untold amounts of death and destruction, and so damaged that she cannot go back to being the same woman who went to war. She may have even seen her death but was somehow resurrected. But to go on THAT journey, I had to be armed with the courage of a lioness... Individuals on the journey eventually find themselves experiencing a baptism by fire. It's that moment when they are just about to lose their lives, and they, miraculously, courageously find the answer that gives their life meaning. And that meaning saves them. In the words of Joseph Campbell, in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", "The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero. The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth, or the dreamer in a dream, discovers and assimilates his opposites, his own unsuccessful self, either by swallowing it or being swallowed. I still see my younger self so clearly from that fateful day in my therapist's office. She stands up, in tears, on a mound of snow. Pissed off, she shouts, "Bitch!!! I'm not going to be swallowed!

você pode, sem a menor dúvida, reescrever sua vida. Pode redefini-la. Não é preciso viver no passado.

you. That “I deserve” way of thinking is hard to reconcile in this business. A better question is this: Do you want to be an actor or do you want to be a famous actor? If you want to be famous, as the great Alan Arkin said, you will have a hard time. If you want to be an actor, you will find a way.

Annalise Keating released in me the obstacles blocking me from realizing my worth and power as a woman. Before that, I created a story. Sometimes stories are straight-up lies that you make up because you want what you remember to be different. Sometimes a story is simply how YOU saw that event, how you internalized it. And sometimes the truth simply is. Simply straight-up fact. I was erasing that made-up story. I decided it was time to tell my story, as I remember it, my truth.

I was a powder cake of secrets. I kept them in because it allowed me to get through my day. I couldn't let what I was feeling out. Any chance I had to be part of something where I could make a mark, I joined in.

I found out weeks later when I had the courage to look up how to comfort the dying that they don’t feel heat or cold in the end. They usually have visions of people in their life who had passed before them. They have them because they need permission to cross over. You have to validate that. You keep their lips moist and give them little sips of water if they can take it. Most importantly, the number one comfort is this . . . hold their hand. My daddy

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” —THOMAS MERTON

For my speaking gigs, the title of my presentation is always the same: 'The journey of a hero'. I learned from writer Joseph Campbell, that a hero is someone born into a world where they don’t fit in. They are then summoned on a call to an adventure that they are reluctant to take. What is the adventure? A revolutionary transformation of self. The final goal is to find the elixir. The magic potion that is the answer to unlocking HER. Then she comes "home" to this ordinary life transformed and shares her story of survival with others... My journey was like a war movie, where at the end, the hero has been bruised and bloodied, traumatized from witnessing untold amounts of death and destruction, and so damaged that she cannot go back to being the same woman who went to war. She may have even seen her death but was somehow resurrected. But to go on THAT journey, I had to be armed with the courage of a lioness.

What I have realized since is that those moments of feeling alive are part of a continuum. You find that moment. You bask in it. Then as soon as it passes, life becomes about chasing the next moment. I now understand that life, and living it, is more about being present. I’m now aware that the not-so-happy memories lie in wait; but the hope and the joy also lie in wait.

Abuse elicits so many memories of trauma that embed themselves into behavior that is hard to shake. It could be something that happened forty years ago, but it remains alive, present. When you're clutching to live, morals go out the window.

I had the persona of being real because I didn’t know what or who else to be. But being real and being transparent are two totally different things. Being real is wearing fifteen-dollar shoes and being proud to wear them. Being transparent is saying, “I’m always anxious. I never feel like I fit in. I need help.

Abuse elicits so many memories of trauma that embed themselves into behavior that is hard to shake.

Quem tem um “porquê” para viver pode aguentar qualquer “como”.

Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth

Sumole”—Hello, how are you? “Ibije”—I am fine. “Kon te na te”—How’s your family? “Te na te”—They are fine. “Kara be”—I am here. “Kara jon”—I see you.

Forgiveness

I screamed, "Give it to me!" Screaming as if the louder I became the more my fear would be released. And he gave me the glass and walked away. I took the glass and hid it, and my body felt like I had just been beaten up or ran thirty miles. I had to stand up to my father, the authority figure. The one who should be taking the glass from ME, teaching ME right from wrong. The most frightening figure in my life and the first man we all ever loved. Frightening? Without knowing, I had already been imprinted, stamped by their behavior and all that they were. As much as I wanted my life to be better, the only tools I had to navigate the world were given to me by them. How they talked. How they fought. How my mom made concessions. How they loved and who they loved shaped me. If I didn't bust out of all that, would this exhaustion and depletion be what I would feel after every fight in my life, even the small ones? That fight marked the beginning of my shift. Looking back on that night when I stood up to my dad and wiped up my mom's blood, I knew my life would be a fight. And I realized this: I had it in me.

As much as I would love to romanticize that time, I can't. I was so unfinished. I asked God for a boyfriend, professional acting status, and the experience of traveling overseas, but I didn't ask for wisdom, I didn't ask for self-love, and it showed. I was with a man who never loved me. My objective the entire 7 years was earning his love.

Anita comforted me, utterly confused by my wailing. 'Well, what made you think you were in an exclusive relationship?' 'Because Anita, we just were! I was living there in his apartment!' Silence. 'Living with him, or just staying there in the weekends when you came home from school?' 'Anita, I've been with him for years now!' 'Viola, if there was no conversation with him about being exclusive in the relationship, then you weren't. I'm sorry. You just thought you were because, what, you love him?' Anita was very matter-of-fact.