My skepticism doesn't come from no one. There's a root to it, and it's my family.

I like when a guy wears ripped jeans, has a loose-fitting V-neck top and has a pair of kicks. You can't go wrong with a suit either.

I would say an eyebrow pencil - a brush and pencil, I cannot leave home without that. Definitely concealer, just because of traveling all the time. I use MAC, and the color I use is a mix between NC42 and NC45. I cannot leave home without that because I'm blotchy. Otherwise, I would say mascara.

Even though I'm an African-American woman, it's not different from any other Bachelorette.

When I know I want to do something I'm just gonna do it.

You never want to bite the hand that feeds you, but you also do not want to be aiding and abetting problematic behavior.

If the National Football League, an organization notoriously known for not standing behind their athletes of color, can come out to make a statement to condemn racism and their systemic oppression and admit they were wrong for not listening in the past, then the 'Bachelor' franchise can most certainly follow suit.

Sports has always been a thing of mine.

I majored in sports and went to law school and focused in sports law, so I always knew I wanted to do ESPN but thought it would be behind the camera. After doing 'Bachelor' and 'Bachelorette,' the media circuit, I thought, you know what - I want to talk about it!

I love sports, and people don't realize that.

I keep saying this. I don't think men know what they want. Women are here to help them figure out what it is they want. Like, we're the neck. We tell them to turn left, right, front, back, whatever it is.

Men know what they want when we help them figure it out. We make them think they figured it out by themselves. They really didn't. We know we did it, and that's a woman's job.

I already know what people are going to say about me, and judge me for the decisions that I'm making, and I'm going to be the one who has to deal with that, and nobody else. And that's a lot.

I wouldn't want people judging me for things I did at 18.

It was actually harder for me to decide if I wanted to move forward as 'The Bachelorette' than it was to decide to be a contestant on 'The Bachelor.' I knew I'd have to ask off work a second time, and I waited until the last minute to talk to my boss about it.

My career is really important to me. I've worked hard for it.

I'm actually glad I didn't watch 'The Bachelor' or 'The Bachelorette' prior to being on them. I think if I'd watched them before being a contestant, I would've over-analyzed it or tried to be something else - tried to fit into that world. Because I was so green, I was just me, and I think it was really refreshing to the people watching it.

Knowing that I was potentially going to be the first black Bachelorette actually held me back from wanting to do it. With the first, there's always so much pressure. And I knew I was going to be new to the audience as a lead for a number of reasons - being over 30, being a career woman, and also being black.

It is so easy to fall victim of everybody else's definition of what you should be.

I'm a fan of 'Real Housewives,' so I personally like drama.

Being a lawyer is absolutely stressful in its own right. But then, doing 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette' and all the media afterwards, you can imagine, that's just like a whole new level of stress.

I like a confident man.

I love a challenge. I do.

I want four kids.

For 'The Bachelor,' I went through the entire process and was told I was chosen, and then I told my boss... It turned out that my boss was a huge fan of the show, and he was ecstatic. My promise to my firm was that I would do the filming then go back to work, and I did.

I am a never-say-never person.

Especially as a woman, the jury sums you up immediately and is listening to everything you're saying. You have to be on your game all the time, and that prepares you for being in front of the camera. The difference is, when I am in front of a jury, I am not talking about my emotions and my life.

As the first of anything, you're going to be judged. If you accept the good, you have to accept the bad.

Football, basketball, and track are my favorites, but I really enjoy watching all sports.

I'm a trial attorney and I specialize in defense civil litigation. My firm represents businesses and organizations in whatever aspect they get sued, whether it's commercial litigation, to personal injury, liability, contracts, we litigate for them on their behalf.

Well, I was a huge 'Matlock' fan as a child.

I know there are going to be people who criticize what I do no matter what, but I'm just trying to not get caught up in it.

My dad is very supportive about me being the Bachelorette. He realizes what an amazing experience it is.

Pop culture does not frequently depict women of color realizing their happy ending.

Losing a loved one is never easy.

Legends of the Fall' is one of my favorite movies.

Some people can't handle that I'm direct.

I'm real and honest, and I take things day by day. That's just the way to survive.

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.

If you want to explore a political idea in the highest possible way, you embody it in the personal, because that's something that no one can deny.

I love story-writing because I can (more or less, on occasion) actually DO it. That's really the truth. I like the idea that a story is sort of a site for making cool language effects - a site for celebrating language, and, therefore, the world. And the brevity is part of the challenge. I like stories because I get them - I know how to make beauty, or something like beauty, in that mode.

I was raised Catholic,I took from that was a sense of theater and drama, and also the idea that there were truths that couldn't actually be uttered directly but really had to be reached through ritual. You come out of those Masses so moved, and you're like, "Why did that happen?" And the truth of it is that it happened through an hour of highly enacted ritual.

Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little voice saying: 'Oh, I should tweet about this.'

My idea about collections is that you write as hard as you can for some period and what you're really doing during that time is hyper-focusing on the individual pieces - trying to make each one sit up and really do some surprising work.

When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.

When I was a kid, I took 'The Brady Bunch' and 'The Partridge Family' very seriously. It was a world to me in the same way that the Greek myths would have been had I read them. You know, Marcia is Athena and Mr. Brady is Zeus.

I read Rand and thought, "I want to be one of the earth movers, the scientific people who power the world. I don't want to be one of these lisping liberal artsy leeches." So I was working against my actual abilities.

The great American denial riff is that you can do whatever you like and you always triumph at the end. The world is saying no, you can do what you like, but there are consequences. And maturity is to be able to turn to the consequences and accept them.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

New York is so full of the best unemployed actors on the planet.