Your parents only want what’s best for you. They know a career in the arts usually means living paycheck to paycheck; they just want you to know that you have other options! – Octavia Spencer
I’m not trying to be a different weight. I want to be a different body type so that I’m not an apple. I just want to be a pear! – Octavia Spencer
I’m a woman who eventually will get married and have kids – adopted at this point – but I see myself with a family and less time to commit to wanting to be a lead character. – Octavia Spencer
I’m not a fan of ‘Gone With the Wind.’ I didn’t like the movie. I didn’t like the book. – Octavia Spencer
I like a person who knows how to say something dark at a very dark moment. The darker the moment and the darker the comic, the better. Something that is so wrong on all levels. – Octavia Spencer
It baffles me that everything is so homogenized, because the world isn’t, and yet we continue to support things that are so incredibly milquetoast. – Octavia Spencer
Let me tell you, my career went from zero to 900. Its hard keeping up with that pace, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. – Octavia Spencer
It’s been pretty effortless with Sensa because I am not thinking about how long do I need to do this. Usually, when you stop a diet program, you lose control again. But I don’t need to stop what I’m doing. I’m eating everything that I like. Sensa just helps me keep it all in check. – Octavia Spencer
The misperception about the South is that everybody is racist, and all black people are victims, that what was prevalent in the ’60s is only relegated to the South. – Octavia Spencer
People think that I have this wonderful hourglass figure, but I owe that to designer Tadashi Shoji because he cuts for me really well. – Octavia Spencer
City Year resonated with me because when I grew up, we were poor – and an education is a way out of poverty. It’s a way out of the current situation that can seem isolating and hopeless for some kids. – Octavia Spencer
You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny, and hope that whatever your art is that you’re putting out there, if it’s received, great, I respect you for receiving it. If it’s not received, great, I respect you for not. – Octavia Spencer
If you come out of the gate with a finger pointed, then you really aren’t opening the door to any sort of resolution to whatever the problem may be. Whether it’s about race or sexual orientation or religion, if you can’t empathize with the opposing party, then you can’t really meet in the middle. – Octavia Spencer
My mom always told me I could do or be anything I dared to dream, and I always wanted to work in the movie industry. – Octavia Spencer
The fact that women are very young in obtaining their civil rights and African-Americans are young in obtaining their civil rights, I think it’s about time that we extend that to all Americans, whether straight, gay, purple, green, black, brown. – Octavia Spencer
If more women ate, they would be a lot happier. Let me tell you, I am a lot grumpier when I don’t eat. – Octavia Spencer
There are so many more women and men who deserve opportunities. People of color. Period. – Octavia Spencer
We as women have a voice and we are decision makers in what film to see. We always support our boyfriends and husbands by going to see the male dominated films, but we don’t compel them to see films with female casts. – Octavia Spencer
I hope that in some way that I can be some sort of beacon of hope, especially because I am not the typical Hollywood beauty. – Octavia Spencer
You just keep moving forward and doing what you do and hope that it resonates with people. And if it doesn’t, you just keep moving on until you find a project that does. – Octavia Spencer
We always think that we’re going to be young forever, and now when I wake up, I need to stretch, and I need to have my glass of water and be cognizant of what I’m doing with my body. – Octavia Spencer
I think success happens when it’s supposed to and when you can appreciate it. I am grateful that it didn’t happen for me at 22 or 23. I would’ve been foolish enough to think that we’re all entitled to it, instead of it being the divine blessing that it is. – Octavia Spencer
I am an advocate of education. It is the panacea for all that ails us in our society. – Octavia Spencer
I was a production assistant. I saw what people who are full of themselves are like – another reason not to lose your humility! I have a mouth on me so I wasn’t the best P.A. – Octavia Spencer
I think it’s actually a misperception that I am a comedic actress. I do more drama than comedy but very little of it has been seen. When you are in big funny movies and they do well and your little part in it kind of explodes people perceive you as a comedian. – Octavia Spencer