Latest Lupita Nyong'o Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• On a very practical level, I've learned the importance of circulation socks for planes. I had this awful experience of getting off a flight to go to an event and my feet had swelled. Try getting into heels then! So you put on the socks for the flight, then you can wear whatever heels you want.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Trying, Flight, Importance

  Source: www.glamour.com

• The first time I cut all my hair off was when I was 19. I just got fed up going to the salon every week. I'd had enough! On a whim, it was off. It's low-maintenance.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Cutting, Week, Enough

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I went to an all-boys high school, and they accepted girls in only the two A.P. classes. They had these archaic rules: for example, girls couldn't wear makeup. I found it so outrageous that an all-boys school could tell girls to not wear makeup! So I went on a campaign. I got a petition signed and everything. If a girl wants to wear makeup to boost confidence, why not?

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Girl, School, Makeup

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I remember in my very first fitting, costume designer Patricia Norris gave me a garment with these intricate stitches - stitches over stitches, because it had been repaired so many times. Once I put it on, she told me that it belonged to an actual slave woman. My heart just stopped. Each one of the stitches had a story, you know. Just recognizing this period I was going to be dancing with was a "come to Jesus" moment.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Jesus, Heart, Dancing

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I love color. I'm enjoying trying all different shades. Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Makeup, Trying, Different

  Source: www.glamour.com

• We don't get to pick the genes we want. There's room in this world for beauty to be diverse.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  World, Want, Rooms

  Source: www.glamour.com

• Your value is in yourself; the other stuff will come and go.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Stuff, Comes And Goes, Values

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I think beauty is an expression of love.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Thinking, Expression, Expressions Of Love

  Source: www.glamour.com

• Beautiful people have many advantages, but so do friendly people.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Beautiful, People, Friendly

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I come from a loving, supportive family, and my mother taught me that there are more valuable ways to achieve beauty than just through your external features. She was focused on compassion and respect, and those are the things that ended up translating to me as beauty.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Mother, Compassion, Supportive

  Source: www.glamour.com

• European standards of beauty are something that plague the entire world - the idea that darker skin is not beautiful, that light skin is the key to success and love. Africa is no exception.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Beautiful, Keys, Light

  Source: www.glamour.com

• When I was in the second grade, one of my teachers said, "Where are you going to find a husband? How are you going to find someone darker than you?" I was mortified. I remember seeing a commercial where a woman goes for an interview and doesn't get the job. Then she puts a cream on her face to lighten her skin, and she gets the job! This is the message: that dark skin is unacceptable. I definitely wasn't hearing this from my immediate family - my mother never said anything to that effect - but the voices from the television are usually much louder than the voices of your parents.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Mother, Teacher, Jobs

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I dress according to how I feel.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Dresses, Feels

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I like people who don't tell you what you want to hear.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  People, Want, What You Want

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I feel a responsibility to myself and my parents and the people whose love has gotten me this far - people who were in my life before fame. That's where I get my sense of self. It's deadly for anyone to take on that role of a deity; it's not sustainable. I've got tons of flaws. Call my mother - she'll tell you! She keeps it real. Sometimes you don't want to hear the truth; she'll tell it to you out of love.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Mother, Real, Responsibility

  Source: www.glamour.com

• Oprah played a big role in my understanding of what it meant to be female and to really step into your own power. I wouldn't even call her a role model; she was literally a reference point. You have the dictionary, you have the Bible, you have Oprah.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Role Models, Understanding, Roles

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I was bullied by my siblings and cousins, so make-believe was a way in which I could be in charge. When I was like 10 and my sister was about five, I convinced her that she was going to jail because she used a bad word. The doorbell happened to ring, and I told her it was the police. I made her pack her bags. She was crying, and then I said to her, "I forgive you, and I'm gonna tell the cop to go away." Then, of course, she loved me. It was terrible - she still remembers it. I had a sordid sense of humor.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Cousin, Sibling, Believe

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I've always had an involved imagination.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Imagination, Involved

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I loved duping my parents; I liked manipulating them. It was a way for me to stand out. It was fun.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Fun, Parent, Way

  Source: www.glamour.com

• With success comes more responsibility, a larger size of existence, which is uncomfortable.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Responsibility, Size, Existence

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I've always had that going on: "I can't," and then I do, so the voice says, "Well, that was an exception!" It's a tug-of-war between two voices: the one who knows she can and the one who's scared she can't.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  War, Two, Voice

  Source: www.glamour.com

• Every time I overcome an obstacle, it feels like success. Sometimes the biggest ones are in our head - the saboteurs that tell us we can't.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Overcoming, Saboteurs, Obstacles

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I don't think I will ever be able to really articulate how bizarre it was to hear my name at the Academy Awards. I'd watched in my pajamas the year before! I felt numb - dazed and confused. I remember feeling light - weightless. More like limbo than cloud nine. At first I was like, This is my statue; nobody gets to touch it. And by midnight I was like, Please, someone, take this statue; it's too heavy! So I gave it to my brother, and he went off with it.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Brother, Confused, Thinking

  Source: www.glamour.com

• You win an Oscar, and immediately people ask how you feel. So you don't have time to actually feel anything because you have to generate a response. And then some of the feelings you have are so intimate and visceral, words don't really do them justice.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Winning, People, Justice

  Source: www.glamour.com

• I used to enjoy doing silly walks on the street with my friends. Like, you know, you're walking, and then you break out in something completely ridiculous, to kind of spook out the person walking by you. I can't really do that anymore.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Silly, Break Out, Ridiculous

  Source: www.glamour.com