I think that we could be more careful about what we're saying to young women in terms of their expectations. It's unrealistic to expect people to always be in designer clothes. Girls growing up deserve more freedom in how they look and how they feel about how they look.

I wanted to try to push some freedom into the men's clothes.

I was raised by a lady that was crippled all her life but she did everything for me and she raised me. She washed our clothes cooked our food she did everything for us. I don't think I ever heard her complain a day in her life. She taught me responsibility towards my brother and sisters and the community.

The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out I had the rent for the month.

When I'm writing my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.

You start making movies and people start seeing when you go to places and all of a sudden you are getting clothes for free and all of a sudden you are getting food for free.

I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn't enough in the community where I came from because everybody was doing it. So I wasn't prepared for America where everybody is glowing with good teeth and good clothes and food.

I don't enjoy good food. I don't enjoy flashy cars. I don't care if I live in a dump. I don't enjoy good clothes. This is the best I've dressed in months.

People always comment about my clothes. They don't think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook.

It's fantastic to strive towards a nice life where you eat nice organic food and your children go to a nice school and you can afford nice clothes and nice perfume and the hypoallergenic make-up. But there's never a day goes by and I mean this from the bottom of my heart that I don't think about where I'm from.