There's something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It's like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.

When I just decided to be myself, that's when you get questions like, 'How do you feel about feminism?' And I have no idea; this is just when I decide what I'm not tolerating and what I genuinely think and a little bit in between.

I don't think I'm inherently feminist. I think the universe wants me to be feminist, and I think I resonate with that. I think it just chose me to be this female energy... thing. And I'm very drawn to female energy, but I don't really have any prerequisites in feminism. I just roll with it.

Control is not real, and I'm really understanding that every day. It's about the acceptance of relinquishing control that makes it powerful for you.

I didn't dream of being in television or film. But then I got married pretty young and had children, and I wanted to feed the children, so I worked a lot of film and television.

July 13, 1954 was the most tragic day of my life. I had lost my beloved Frida forever. To late now I realized that the most wonderful part of my life had been my love for Frida.

I think back on that day when 16-year-old me scribbled on some silly piece of paper for some long-forgotten high school career-day project that my dream job was 'romance novelist.'

Why would anyone get married and have babies? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my life. Or the scariest thing I've ever heard in my life.