Davis: "I didn't aspire to be just a celebrity; I aspired to be an actress... I always wanted to be respected as someone who knew their craft."

Davis: "I think that's something that people feel that I do really well; I don't mind it, because ultimately I think the characters I play move people, and who wouldn't want to move people?"

Davis: "I would love to do really great work and for women who are marginalised to see me as an inspiration."

Davis: "I would like to say that I'm a walking poster board for feminism and women's liberation, but there are things that I do in my life that deeply, deeply fall short of being a statement for being a strong woman. I am flawed as much as anyone else."

Davis: "I reserve the right to be a mess and completely unlikable."

Davis: "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."

Davis: "What do you want? What do you want your life to be? What do you want your testimony to be? Go for it!"

Davis: "I always feel terrified whenever I put my work out there to be seen, to be scrutinized. I think it's a very vulnerable thing that we are asked to do."

Davis: "That's always the biggest surprise when people meet me: how buoyant I am and how fun and light I am."

Davis: "As an actor, every opportunity, every role, everything that I do is an opportunity to have someone have a human experience with my work. I don't just want it to be about a cute wardrobe and a high paycheck."

Davis: "My whole thing is, I've got to be as good, as courageous as what's written on the page."

Davis: "I have had issues in the past with the characters and the limitations of the characters and the structure of the narratives given to me as a woman of color."

Davis: "It's a dream to be able to just play a multi-faceted character."

Davis: "This is the richest country in the world. There's no reason kids should be going to school hungry. Food is something that everyone should have. It just is."

Davis: "I think women are very complicated human beings, and I think there's an oversimplification of women when you see them on screen."

Davis: "Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else."

Davis: "Sometimes there is no sugar-coating it. Sometimes you have to challenge people's belief systems in a progressive way."

Davis: "It feels like my hard work has paid off, but at the same time, I still have the impostor, you know, syndrome. I still feel like I'm going to wake up, and everybody's going to see me for the hack I am."

Davis: "When you are an actor, you are in the most powerless position in this business."

Davis: "When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way."

Davis: "Egos are an occupational hazard in acting, but I don't have much of one, and my husband doesn't have much of one, so it's good."

Davis: "If I have to be at work at five A.M., I will get up at three and work out. I run. I do weights. I'm very toned. I'm like every other woman. I'd love to be 10 pounds or 20 pounds lighter. If I'm not, I'm OK with that, too. I'm good as long as I'm healthy."

Davis: "I live a fantastic life. Why should I complain about awards?"

Davis: "I suffered from low self-esteem for much of my life. And now to feel like maybe something that I'm projecting or saying could mean something to someone means a lot to me."

Davis: "Your ability to adapt to failure, and navigate your way out of it, absolutely 100 percent makes you who you are."

Davis: "I did everything to get food. I have stolen for food. I have jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food. I have befriended people in the neighborhood who I knew had mothers who cooked three meals a day for food, and I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame."

Davis: "Self-deprecation is not the answer to humility."

Davis: "I feel that confidence in women - especially young girls of color - but women, in general, is so important. It is so important for us to arm ourselves and become powerful at a very young age."

Davis: "Whatever the actor gives me, I use."

Davis: "I don't care if someone is new to acting or experienced in acting: you always learn something from them. It's just like people in life - whether they're young or middle-aged or old, you always learn something from someone."

Davis: "I've had to sink my teeth into a role that was probably a fried-chicken dinner and make it into a filet mignon."

Davis: "Vanity destroys your work. That's the one thing you have to let go of as an actor. I don't care how sexy or beautiful any woman is. At the end of the day, she has to take her makeup off. At the end of the day, she's more than just pretty."

Davis: "Every job I've ever gotten has transformed me in some way as an actor."

Davis: "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."

Davis: "The predator wants your silence. It feeds their power, entitlement, and they want it to feed your shame."

Davis: "I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated, that we are indeed messy, that we do our best with what we've been given. We come into the world exactly like you. It's just that there are circumstances in the culture that are dictated and put on our lives that we have to fight against."

Davis: "I think tapping into one's power and one's potential is a very frightening thing."

Davis: "I tell my daughter every morning, 'Now, what are the two most important parts of you?' And she says, 'My head and my heart.' Because that's what I've learned in the foxhole: What gets you through life is strength of character and strength of spirit and love."

Davis: "There's got to be a voice deep within you that is untouched by definitions. And it is there that you become divinely who you are."

Davis: "Can I just tell you, I think it's the most beautiful thing about young people today, it gives me so much hope for the future, that they don't really recognize race the way my generation does."

Davis: "There's no prerequisites to worthiness. You're born worthy, and I think that's a message a lot of women need to hear."

Davis: "The reason I became an actress is because I wanted my acting to reflect life as it is. I want to put truth on the screen. I want real women to see real women on the screen."

Davis: "What excites me is just taking some time to breathe in life. The mundane is very exciting."