Tracee Ellis Ross Quotes

When I'm not working, I spend a lot of time on my hair.

When it's time for my hair to get some rest, I either wear it in a ponytail, bun or my favorite "milkmaid" braid.

I just want to say this. I love being a woman. I love playing a woman. I love being a whole and full woman. I am more than my parts, and we all are. And we all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing. We are full and beautiful women, and let us live in that.

I hope they look at me and think, 'That lady looks like she accepts herself'.

My bathroom is filled with hair and makeup stuff and I play with it all the time. What the real lesson is, is that you can own your own sense of beauty. It doesn't have to be something you get from somewhere else.

I'm extremely blessed to have the extraordinary mother that I have, and I don't mean Diana Ross, I mean the mother. My mom paved a road that didn't exist, as did Oprah.

I'm a really big believer in self care.

One of the ways I nourish my soul is I eat the way I live my life - joyfully.

Here is my wish and my desire and my pledge as well: that we remember our true nature and our womanhood. That we own and know that we are more than our bodies and yet our bodies are these sacred, beautiful, rhythmic houses for us.

I was very shy growing up. My shyness manifested as a big personality, as opposed to the wallflower personality. It's been a journey getting comfortable in my skin. I've worked on trying to find the authentic balance between the bravado of my personality that was sort of a defense and the truth within my bigness.

If I'm going to show cleavage or chest then I don't show leg.

I show one thing. If I show leg then everything else is covered up.

I was shy, but it came out in a big personality.

My turning point was when I let my hair go naturally and I got contact lenses. I am really blind, by the way. I have these big eyes that don’t work!

I'm trying to find my own version of what makes me feel beautiful.

I don't really talk about my personal life.

It's a strange and funny and weird thing. Sometimes you have a conversation with someone and the paparazzi snaps a picture of you and people decide you're dating. If I try to answer everything people say, I would be up all night.

This is a couple that actually loves, respects & appreciates each other.

Someone asked me recently, "Do you get sick of people asking you about your hair?" And the reason I don't is because I actually feel like you could chronicle my journey of self-acceptance through my journey with my hair. It's a badge of something bigger.

When you feel happy, you look beautiful.

I buy what makes my heart sing. So, it's not that I follow one specific track. It's sort of what I like. I love colors. I love unique pieces. I love vintage clothing.

I sometimes think to myself, you're not going to meet a new friend of any kind at home in front of the TV with your DVR. As much as it's great, and there are so many good shows on TV, and I have great books that I'm reading, get out and interact with people.

I wanted Bow's hair and makeup and clothing to look like a woman who has four children, a career, and a full life. For example, she won't wear eyeshadow unless she's going out. Because it takes a lot of time to put eyeshadow on. She's a woman who has style, but it's all about functionality - she grabs stuff from her closet.

I'm a farmer's market girl, so if you go and get beautiful, fresh fruit, that's local, and it hasn't been frozen yet, it's pretty fantastic.

Throughout high school, I was obsessed with magazines.

I used to just comb through them and plaster things on my wall.

Nothing goes to windward like a 747.

I think television is doing a better job than films in terms of representing people, but television is still not diverse.

The two things that I thought were really interesting about this character [Bow] for me were that she actually loved her husband, and he loved her. The comedy was not coming from the fact that they hated each other. Which is what television couples are usually based on.

And it [acting] was exciting to me. And scary.

[Black-ish creator] Kenya Bariss wrote on Girlfriends. We've been friendly since then. He sent me [the pilot] and said, "I wrote it for you." But I know what that means in this industry.

The clothing, the makeup, the freedom of expression in [the models'] bodies. It was Linda and Christy and Naomi at the time. So I modeled before college.

After college, I shot a pilot for a show on Lifetime, which was basically House of Style for a TV lover. I think I got paid $1,500, and I was like, "Mom, I'm moving out! I made it!" I did two seasons of that, but I felt like a talking head and wanted to do more.

Sometime in my second year at Brown [University], I took an acting class. And the lightbulb went off for me. I fell in love with it. I realized that everything I was afraid of about myself, all my fears, could be used in that world.

As a younger person, my philosophy was jump off a cliff. I realize now that there are stairs and elevators. I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me. I can even ask for help! Not feeling that I have to know everything, and that’s where the growth comes in, in the not knowing.

I doubted Black-ish , and I'll tell you why. Because it doesn't matter if a writer wrote it for you. He could've written it with you in mind. But TV is a collaborative art. It involves producers, networks, studios, and many people signing off on you. And a lot of times there are deals in place - actors with studios that they're looking for shows for.

I've always been a curious thinker. And now, as an adult, I can articulate it.

Why am I beating my hair up? Because I want it to look like something that it isn't? These are questions that I've been pondering my whole life.

We all, as women, need to continue to change our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing.

In some of the darkest and hardest moments, there is always a part of me that is okay. And I can always access that part of me.

One of the things I've realized is how portable God is. No really, He's everywhere!

There are a ton of foods that are great for you, that's like an indulgence.

I was spoiled when I worked in the magazine world. Fashion closets are heaven and I seem to model my organization after a fashion closet.

Because of my unique experience as my mom's child, the beginning of my journey was more about me trying to figure out who I was on my own. My mom is one of the greatest moms and so supportive of all my siblings and of all of us being who we are, and not who she wanted us to be.

I felt like it was a courageous show [Black-ish] from the beginning. We are a black family - we're not a family that happens to be black. But the show is not even about us being black. The show is about us being a family. That is groundbreaking - on TV, the black characters either happen to be black or they're the "black character," where everything they say is about being black. I think that's the genius.

Black-ish is really a show about an American family and these are some of the topics that come up - for all of us, in different ways - and we get to see how this family is walking through it.

My generation is one of the first generations of "choiceful" women - women who have actually had the choice of how they architect their lives - and I don't think shame should have any place in that. But as that generation, you get cuts and bruises.

I was recently watching Rihanna on the Billboard awards, and I was like, My God, she's incredible! And then I looked up her age [28]. She's always been talented. She's always been a star. But when you see her, she's becoming herself. It's age that happens. That's what I respond to.

My mom didn't adhere to any of those typical rules. She woke us up for school every morning, and was there at dinner or would call at bedtime. She never left for longer than a week. She recorded while we were sleeping.

I think our culture promotes fear and shame.

There is a way to be a woman, ask for what we deserve and be able to negotiate.

Wisdom means to choose now what will make sense later.

Just embrace your hair! I really feel like I am not an advocate for people doing what I do. I'm an advocate for people discovering and finding what works for them.

I want to be awake. I want to choose kindness, live & let live. I want joy, gratitude, and peace today.

Differences in experience, points of view and opinions aren't what pulls us apart. It's what pulls us together.