I read so many scripts, and it's not really exciting to just be the girlfriend.

It's not very exciting to go to work to just have your character's identity being defined by her relationship with her male counterparts.

The slave narratives, there is a wealth of research there, because you are hearing stories from the first person account, and that's a whole different thing than reading about it in the history books. You're able to really personalize it.

I'm a research queen.

Marian Wright Edelman is a mentor and hero of mine.

I can get a little scattered and want to be everywhere and want to do everything for everyone.

Henry Louis Gates is such a wealth of knowledge in himself.

Before being a mom, I remember going on a Twitter rant during the whole George Zimmerman trial in Florida about my younger brothers and how one day I'll be the mom of a black son.

There's this notion, kind of like unspoken, that you can't live your dreams and be a mom. You can't have a career and be a mom. There's still that preconceived notion, and I reject that.

I've always been proud that I come from people who were activists, who have this indomitable spirit. I am proud to have inherited the spirit of resistance and revolution.

They did laugh; they did fall in love. And while they were under incredibly oppressive conditions, they constantly were trying to steal pleasures. When you go back to the slave narratives, and you read books like the 'Bullwhip Days' or 'Incidents in the Life of the Slave Girl,' they will share what life was like, and it's a 365-degree view.

Injustice is either very blatant - you walk down the street and someone calls you a name; you don't get a job because of your gender or your skin color or your sexual preference - but injustice is also very subliminal.

I'm very picky about the kind of work that I do, and I'm fortunate to have been able to work with great directors and great actors who've helped me grow as an artist.

When I was 12 years old, I got involved with an organization called Artists for a New South Africa. One of its missions is to help with HIV/AIDS awareness.

I started shooting 'The Defenders' two days after I wrapped' Friday Night Lights.' I was doing research for 'The Defenders' throughout - interviewing lawyers and sitting in courtrooms just to watch - but there's something fun about throwing yourself in the water and learning by doing.

I'm very grateful to have been able to work with so many talented filmmakers and actors during my career. I've learned so much from them. It's been my college, in a way.

Until we really heal the wounds that we dealt with during slavery, I don't think we'll be a fully realized country.

We all try to pretend we're the person we want to be when we're really not, and you've just gotta be willing to say, 'Here are all my flaws; here's who I am - take it or leave it. If you love me still, then let's do this.'

I like the idea of matchmaking; I'm just not very good at it. It's too much pressure!

I think, as human beings, we try to hide our flaws and try to present this perfect person, this person we wish we were, to our spouse when that causes so many troubles.

The lullaby my husband puts our son to sleep with is so random. It's 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough' by Michael Jackson.

Far too often, I read a script where the girls are the girlfriend or the set dressing.

We got spoiled with 'Friday Night Lights.' Not every show is like that, and on other shows, if you try to bring that same truth or that same approach, the system of television doesn't always allow for that level of collaboration, which is unfortunate because the work would be richer.

There's something about Jason Katims' writing that just feels like home to me. He gives you so much liberty to play, which you don't find on most TV shows. You just don't.

I'm told I'm a statistic. I'm told that my young black sisters are disease-ridden... but we are greater than what society tells us we are.

My dream role is actually behind the camera. I want to direct.

I always told my representatives, 'Look, I come from the 'School of Janet' - that's my mom - she raised me to know that I'm more than just set dressing.

I don't know if I would be doing what I do without 'Eve's Bayou,' and I don't know if I would have the career that I have without working on 'Eve's Bayou.' The love for what I do, I found it in that project.

I wouldn't be able to tackle a character like Rosalee on 'Underground' without having tackled the many characters I've played before.

As Eric Weitz argues, the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) was not responsible for the Reich; it was a democratic, socially aware and progressive government, way ahead of many other European governments in its introduction of workers' rights, public housing, unemployment benefit and suffrage for women.

I thought I'd write a massive postmodern novel about Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood, but it turns out they couldn't have met because the first mention of Robin Hood appears 60 years after Richard died.

The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford is an astonishing building, designed by Christopher Wren. Its painted ceiling has just been restored so that the darkish miasma that was Robert Streeter's original allegory of truth and light striking the university is now bright with playful cherubs and lustrous clouds.

The great thing about the public is that they're quite capable of believing two absolutely contrary views at the same time.

Nadine Gordimer came over just before she died. She didn't want to talk about books or the arts, but about the abuse of the constitution by the government.

Not many people like Johannesburg, but I love the place.

DeLillo has said that he no longer feels a compulsion to write long, compendious books. In his later years, Saul Bellow said something similar. DeLillo, of course, has written very long in the past, notably with the 850-page Underworld (1997), and his story has been America.

I have worshipped Berlin from the day I read 'Two Concepts of Liberty' in South Africa. It seemed to make it respectable to be a liberal.

If Franschhoek has a fault, it is in the lavish refurbishment of wine farms and estates which has reached absurd proportions. Some, like Graf Delaire Estate, are brand new, with jewellery shops, indoor streams, and very high-end lodges for rent at prices not many South Africans can afford.

The book that meant most to me was 'The Wind in the Willows.' It sounds ridiculous, but that was my vision of England.

Weimar lasted 14 years, the Third Reich only 12. Yet Weimar is always seen as a prelude to the Third Reich, which appears to have been created by Weimar's failures.

'Homer and Langley' is the work of E. L. Doctorow's old age. There are fewer Homeric references than you might have expected, given that the narrator is called Homer Collyer and is blind, although, like the classical Homer, not born blind.

It's a strange failure of the literary world that Updike never quite received his due. Despite winning two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards and countless other awards and honours, he was denied the Nobel.

There was loose talk of Enron management practices and reminders of a scandal at the University of Toronto, when a big donor corporation, Eli Lilly, was said to have vetoed the appointment of an academic who doubted the effectiveness of Prozac.

The book tour is a strange institution. You are wheeled about to explain your book and even to justify it.

A good novel is something that challenges perception, that allows you to see the world anew through a different point of view - something that genre fiction doesn't do, although it sells more because it doesn't disturb people's innate sense of what a novel should be about. Often, people want characters to be nice, for example.

Franschhoek Valley was, in recent memory, a simple place with some notable vineyards and two or three streets of Victorian cottages and a few older, thatched houses. The valley was settled early in the 1680s by Huguenots fleeing repression.

It is uncomfortable to be reminded that the Catholic church only removed the reference to 'perfidious Jews' from the Good Friday liturgy in 1960.

Nicola Barker is both prodigiously talented and admirably fearless. I have loved her books. But for some time, I had little or no idea what the point of the story of Sri Ramakrishna was. In fact, he was one of the outstanding men of 19th-century India.

I grew up reading Updike. I remember being alarmed to find that he had published short stories by the time he was 22. I think 'Pigeon Feathers' was the first collection of stories I read. Only much later did I discover his non-fiction reviewing and art criticism.

I'm not an especially male novelist, but I think men are better at writing about men, and the same is true for women. Reading Saul Bellow is a revelation, but he can't write women. There are exceptions, like Marilynne Robinson's 'Gilead,' but generally, I think it's true.