Category: Overcoming Adversity

Taraji P. Henson

Posted on by Emiley Hunt
“Any negative can be turned into a positive. Growing up in the hood around Washington, D.C., I knew my surroundings weren’t going to define me. So I chose to focus on the bigger picture. When I got pregnant in college, I never saw it as a failure, though some did. I said, “Watch me prove them wrong.” And you know what? I carried my baby across that stage at graduation.”
                                                                   
Taraji P. Henson Oprah Magazine

Amy Schumer

Posted on by Lauren Malott
” Being a child of an alcoholic father, and whatever my mom is, has made me incapable of believing that the people I love won’t leave me, or hurt me in a way that I didn’t think they were capable of. I have to fight against all of my impulses and warped instincts to accept any sort of love.”
Amy Schumer’s:  “The girl with the lower back tattoo.”

Queen Latifah

Posted on by Lauren Malott
“‘You know what? It ain’t that serious.’ My business partner told me that when I was going through a tough time and dramatizing everything in my life. Hearing it zapped me back to reality and wiped my worries away. Now when things get too intense, I remember that I’m alive, I’m healthy and life goes on—it ain’t that serious.”
Oprah.com

Andrew Garfield

Posted on by Lauren Malott
 “This means a great deal. Thank you so much. At a moment in time when maybe the most important thing we remember right now is the sanctity of the human spirit, it is the profound privilege of my life to play Prior Walter in Angels in America because he represents the purest spirit of humanity and especially that of the LGBTQ community. It is that spirit that says no to oppression, it is a spirit that says no to bigotry, no to shame, no to exclusion. It is a spirit that says we were all made perfectly, and we all belong. So I dedicate this award to the countless LGBTQ who have fought and died to protect that spirit. To protect that message for the right to live and love as we are created to… we are all sacred. Let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked!“
Andrew Garfield’s acceptance speech for winning Best Actor Tony Award, 2018

Salma Hayek

Posted on by Lauren Malott
“You are alone in reality. You are alone in life and, it’s a beautiful place to be IF you make peace with yourself. If you have a good relationship with yourself, there’s so much to find. We have so many possibilities. We don’t actually spend enough time with ourselves and, many times, we fall into the trap to do things so that other people have a perception of who we are. But, the… mystery of life to me is, the relationship with ‘you and you. Conviction is the place where, even if you made a mistake, mistakes are sometimes the greatest gifts that you can have.”
Oprah Interview, 2018