Top viola Quotes Collection

Discover a curated collection of viola quotes. Find inspiration, motivation, and wisdom from the best quotes in this category.

Image of Viola Davis
What it meant for me to win the Emmy is I found it. It's not just the award. It's what it's going to mean to young girls - young brown girls, especially. When they saw a physical manifestation of a dream, I felt like I had fulfilled a purpose.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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We didn't have money all the time to do laundry. A lot of the time, we didn't have soap or hot water. We were smart kids academically, but we'd go to school smelling.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
Your job as an actor is to piece together whatever you've learned in your training, or whatever you have experienced in your life, to piece together a person.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
I heard about the book and I said, 'Oh my god, I've got to read this book,' and I didn't know that a white woman wrote it. Nobody said that to me, they just said, 'The Help - Oh my god, you've got to read it.' Everyone failed to mention it was a white woman, I think, because nobody really wants to talk about race.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
And this is what was fascinating to me about 'The Help'; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It's always the unspoken word and what's happening behind someone's eyes that makes it so rich.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
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
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola 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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola 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?
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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That's why I do what I do, and that's why I wanted to be an actress from the time I was six years old. If I can't effectively move people, then I would prefer not to do it.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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To the predators... Weinstein, the stranger, the relative, the boyfriend... I say to you, 'You can choose your sin but you don't get to choose the consequences.' To the victims... I see you. I believe you... and I'm listening.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I played several maids in my career. I was tired of the maid after 'Far From Heaven.' I said, no more maids. Until I realized how difficult it was to get a role other than a maid, sometimes, in Hollywood, and sometimes you have to choose your battles, for lack of a better term.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I think many women are successful in their professional lives - they are making the money and all that - but in their personal lives are a complete mess, because they haven't paid any attention to it, because they spent all of their time being successful.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I feel at home in Shondaland. I feel a lot of things at Shondaland, but one of the things I feel that I haven't felt before is at home. I feel accepted for who I am and acknowledged for who I am. I feel like my ideas are embraced.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I've always felt like I was an actor for hire. And almost apologetic for being a woman of color, trying to stifle that voice. But I don't feel that way in Shondaland. I feel like I am accepted into a world where I'm a part of the narrative - I'm a part of it.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola 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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
If it were just a dream to be famous, then I probably would have died a really quick death, because there is nothing about me that equals fame. I'm not a standup comedian. I don't sing.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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You can't be perceived as 'the black actress who doesn't get the same kind of roles as the white actress.' You gotta run the same race. You gotta give the same quality of performances. You gotta have the same standard of excellence, even though people know that you're coming to the race in a deficit. That's just what life is about.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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When a character has so many secrets and so much inner life, it's a joy to play those characters because you can use your craft.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I live a fantastic life. Why should I complain about awards?
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me. Our environment, our physical space reflected our income.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
It became motivation as opposed to something else - the thing about poverty is that it starts affecting your mind and your spirit because people don't see you. I chose from a very young age that I didn't want that for my life. And it very much has helped me appreciate and value the things that are in my life now because I never had it.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
It's a dream to be able to just play a multi-faceted character.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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Flashy characters are more entertaining to people because you get it. You don't have to work to get someone who says what they mean and says what they think. They're out there. It's harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
When you grow up in abject poverty, you see people exactly the way they are.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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My whole thing is, I've got to be as good, as courageous as what's written on the page.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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When you see a parent pass, and you literally are there, and you're sitting at that deathbed, man, and you have to tell them to go, it defines life for what it really is.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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Acting came from growing up in dysfunction. I mean, a lot of great times, but a lot of dysfunction.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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Turning 50 is making me reflect on my life in a way that's more compassionate and forgiving.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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You have to have an unlimited imagination, an unlimited restraint on your inhibition when you're working. You have to even dare to fail, even in a scene, whatever it is.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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You have to dare to make a choice that may be considered unorthodox in a role, but when you're working as if there are tons of people watching you, that's not necessarily a good thing.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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You're only reduced to a cliche if you don't humanize a character.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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My grandmom worked as a maid for most of her life, and she worked in the tobacco and the cotton fields, whatever she could get.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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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.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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My grandmother's house was a one room shack.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I'm the journeyman actor that you saw in one scene here, two scenes there. I've been eking out a living doing theater - Broadway, Off Broadway - film supporting roles, that I'm just excited to be a part of the conversation.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
I think women are very complicated human beings, and I think there's an oversimplification of women when you see them on screen.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
I feel the same way about Shondaland I feel about Africa and Greece. I feel pretty in both places. Men look at me like I'm a novelty, and women think I'm just cool. I feel absolutely at home immediately. I'm not altering myself to fit in. I'm walking in just as I am. And there are open arms stretched out to greet me.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
That's always the biggest surprise when people meet me: how buoyant I am and how fun and light I am.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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I look back on those early days in the theater like the beginning of a love affair, when you're totally in love with the work, and that's all there is.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
I was bullied at school. The black girl in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in 1973. There'd be 8 or 10 boys; I would count them as I was running.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
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So many women characters are extensions of male fantasy.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola
Image of Viola Davis
August Wilson is the one writer that writes about men like my father, who had a fifth grade education, who was a janitor at McDonald's.
- Viola Davis
Collection: Viola