Top 61 Quotes & Sayings by Yara Shahidi

Scenes change all the time. Scenes will change while you're shooting them, and you just have to roll with it 'cause that's what makes it funny. It's not being stuck in your character and how you're gonna do something, but to react to other people and to really have a real-life conversation.

Fashion is one of those places in which, when you're wearing something that feels like a representation of you, it does create, in a matter of speaking, a space for you to exist. Even if it's just in a two-inch radius of where you are. It's a walking, personalized area in which you can live.

At Harvard, I got to meet and have dinner with Jamaica Kincaid. Just to have conversations with professors was absolutely amazing.

I really love acting, but I also really want to be a historian, so it's really confusing.

I've always struggled with Hollywood feeling trivial. Red carpets aren't worth it.

I really love hip hop. My cousin Nas came out with an album 'Life Is Good,' and I love that album, but I also love Maroon 5.

One thing I've always been concerned about is the objectification of women in ads, and that's one thing where I was like, 'Well, if I become a part of advertising, I could change that.'

I'm double majoring in social studies - which is sociology, anthropology, economics, and philosophy - and African-American studies.

When you're biracial, you can feel like you're fully neither, not fully both. But I won't strip away my heritage for anyone's comfort.

I was in Minnesota, where I was born, and I did print ads and commercials. And that was always cool 'cause when you're little, you can only work two hours a day, and it changes.

I know, ultimately, I want to help effect change; otherwise, I would look at myself in the mirror every day and think, 'What in the world am I doing with my life?'

There have been moments when I was on a modeling job, and it was the most fantastic thing in the world. And there have been moments where I've realized, 'Okay, I'm ten years old, and I've spent the past six hours outside in the rain.' It taught me how to be specific about what kinds of projects I wanted to do and what kind of work I wanted to do.

When we moved to L.A., I started going out for more commercials, and then one day they emailed me a movie script. The first thing I said was, 'No way. I love commercials.'

Having life experiences outside of acting is something my family has always made sure happens.

I remember my first actual intense breakout was when I was 13, and I no clue what to do because I hadn't dealt with anything in that large of a scale ever before.

I'm louder and bigger with my curls. There's power in that. Also, straight hair is kind of annoying. It gets caught in my collar.

Being homeschooled for half of my life allowed me to choose my own curriculum and find things I really enjoy, and that's kind of inspired me. I've always been intrigued in or interested in the topics I've been covering.

Gender is a spectrum.

When you are in the public eye as a person of color, you are given very little room to mess up.

Personally, I love denim... denim pants, a shirt, denim jacket - I'm good.

I am just a history nerd.

I have the support of my parents and my teachers. They made it very possible for me to go to a school that is open and supportive of me being gone at times and pursuing acting. But school always comes first for me.

When you're a part of any protected class, whether it is being a woman, a person of color, a part of the LGBTQ community, or an immigrant, we're expected to get everything right and be the embodiment of perfection when it is not expected of other people.

The more you learn about someone, how could you not want to protect them and their rights? The more you learn about a culture or a certain identity, it's hard to not feel empathy.

'First Family' on the CW is about the president and his family living in the White House.

If you look at the history of art and fashion, it's always been political. It's always been pushing boundaries.

I have so many pairs of oxfords; it's ridiculous. It started because at my school you have to wear oxfords for our uniform, but after I got my first pair, I realized they were really comfortable, so they became my regular walking shoes, too.

For me, personally, I'm usually not on my phone that much. I prefer listening to old radio shows and watching foreign films than tweeting.

I feel comfortable putting my political stances out there without feeling as though I am filling some sort of quota. I don't have a wokeness quota for the day.

Maintaining a sense of your personality grounds you in your space. I try and just make what I wear a reflection of how I feel at that moment, at that particular place in time.

L.A. is great, but it's a completely different beast. I go back to Minnesota, and I borrow a bike from my neighbor and go around Lake Harriet saying 'Hi' to people. Some of that is missing in L.A.

I am all about comfort and whatever comes along with comfort. I wear a lot of sweats. But I'm also very preppy naturally.

One thing that used to worry me is the fact that it seemed like Harvard was this big scary thing where I would have to spend all my time studying just to get in. But getting to go to both campuses of Harvard and Oxford and getting to meet some of the professors was absolutely amazing.

My mama is African American and from Wisconsin. My baba was born in Iran. My parents have stressed the idea of creating your own path, and creating your own identity is part of that. That's why embracing these two cultures is important to me.

Personally, getting into college was a big deal because I realized it's probably one of the only things I've fully planned. The rest of my life has been, for the most part, a nice little happy accident. I'm glad that it happened this way, but it's nonetheless unintentional.

I go on and off home-school and regular school, but the kids don't treat me any differently because they've all known me forever.

On a personal level, I think dressing is such a form of expression, and when you do events, it's important to feel as though you are authentically yourself.

What modeling taught me at a young age was how to say 'no,' which is something girls - we're not always good at saying 'no.' We want to be nice, and then we forget to look out for ourselves.

I've been shy twice. Once when I saw Matthew Bomer and once when I saw Adam Levine. I couldn't say anything, literally.

Never jeopardize who you are for a role. Now, I'm not saying you should never change for a role, because the fun of being different characters is adapting different nuances and different parts of the character, but never jeopardize your moral compass or anything like that to have a role.

My friends always laugh because I'm the kind of person who bought the Brooks Brothers school skirt, even though it's not my school's uniform skirt, but just because I liked it. I'm a knee-high socks kind of person.

I've always loved watches. It's been the one thing that I've asked for, whether it was every Christmas or a birthday.

Fortunately I can say that social media has treated me pretty well. I've been exempt from a lot of the mean comments.

I like to think I know a lot, but I don't. I'm motivated to learn more.

Quite honestly, I'm the kind of person to get my feelings hurt over something somebody said on Twitter.

There are so many times in life when you have to suppress what you're feeling. A lot of kids have to deal with that in a school environment: You're not allowed to be happy, sad, depressed, over the moon. Being an actor not only do I get to play an angsty teen, but I get the support that I need to be Yara.

When you go on your phone to check what time it is, you get so distracted. It happens to me every day. 'Oh, I just wanted to see what time it is, but now I'm magically on a panda video.' This is the easier way, but it's also a part of your personal style. It ends up becoming a part of who you are, and representing what you love.

I feel like there's no need to put on a heel that's too high. There's nothing cute about wobbling. There's nothing cute about not wanting to dance or walk somewhere because you're in pain.

Week-by-week you grow with your character and it's an interesting challenge.

When you're aware, from a young age, of how something plays in public, it makes you a young entrepreneur, whether you like it or not. I call most teenagers 'young entrepreneurs' because from a young age we're aware that our social media is building our brand. And if, when you're 13, you're concerned with building your brand, then "like" disparities matter.

No matter how cutting-edge Hollywood may seem, it is still delayed in how it views people: If producers do not perceive me as an Iranian girl, then I cannot play an Iranian girl. If you aren't perceived as a full black girl, then it makes it more difficult to play a black girl on TV.

What modeling taught me at a young age was how to say "no," which is something girls - we're not always good at saying "no." We want to be nice, and then we forget to look out for ourselves. There have been moments when I was on a modeling job, and it was the most fantastic thing in the world. And there have been moments where I've realized, "Okay, I'm ten years old, and I've spent the past six hours outside in the rain." It taught me how to be specific about what kinds of projects I wanted to do, and what kind of work I wanted to do.

I'm lucky; my parents have never said to me, "You're a kid, so you just don't know." They say, "How can we discuss the world and learn from these events together?"

There are two conflicting philosophies that I love: "Everything happens for a reason," as well as "you can change everything that you have control over."

Intergenerational support is crucial. I feel like generations give up on each other. If you're Gen Z, you're like, "Gen X is never gonna get it." If you're Gen X, you're like, "Those Millennials are such idiots."

I like to be in control of my body. Also, I love getting into character and exploring a different aspect of who I am.

I really love hip hop. My cousin Nas came out with an album Life Is Good, and I love that album, but I also love Maroon 5.

Part of why history is so important in my life is because it brings you an awareness that everything isn't new. It gives context to what's happening right now. History is cyclical but circumstances and technology change. So when social justice topics come up, they're not new. They're just being covered more. We have more ways to record it now.

I try to preface everything with "this isn't new." Because most social movements have happened before and I get that. Nothing I'm doing is new.

So much of my work is as Yara, not as a character. If you're attacking my work as a philanthropist or activist, you're attacking Yara. But because of "Black-ish" and this national audience we have, I get to have a larger or louder voice.