To be completely alone.

Climate change.

That we will be remembered as a people who locked our fellow citizens in cages and who believe that some people are rich and some people are poor because “it’s their nature” and that racism and poverty are inevitable parts of the order of things; that M.L.K. and Bobby Kennedy died in vain; and that no one any longer believes what M.L.K. said in his Nobel Prize address in Oslo: “There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.”

Every actor has the same fear – ie, you’re never going to work again.

Cuddling in bed on a Sunday morning with the man I love. Also, applause and standing ovations.

At the SAG awards in 2016. I remember going into that night saying to myself, “I might not be here again; let me be fully in the moment.” The cast of Orange Is the New Black won the acting-ensemble award for the second year in a row, and I was there with a man I truly loved. That night was everything I had always dreamed about.

Thinking that I am less-than. That thinking is cunning, baffling, and insidious, and I must guard against it every hour of every day.

Thinking that I am not enough or not beautiful the way I am. That thinking is super-dangerous.

Mean-spiritedness and the inability to set and respect boundaries.

Leontyne Price gives me life. She broke racial barriers with inimitable poise, grace, and excellence, as well as unbelievable focus and vision.