A Quote by Ursula Burns

Race and gender definitely came up, occasionally, in my life at work. But the bigger challenge that I had was age. I took roles earlier in my career than people expected, and so a lot of what I got was, 'Do you actually know enough to do this?'
The scene at a certain time was definitely boys; those huge warehouses were kind of violent parties, even. I think people in your immediate community made a nightlife scene that actually did break down gender roles and were along different lines of identity that had to do with race and experience in the '90s, rather than gender.
Practicality continues to be a challenge for me - it's at odds with being an artist. I actually had a career on stage in New York - not a brilliant career or I'd still be doing it - but I got enough work to keep my agent and my union health insurance.
It was a tough. Sixteen games into my career, we had a coaching change. It was something I never experienced before, and something I had to go through a lot earlier in my career than I expected.
Lion Babe, on a work day, is definitely a process. I obviously could do it by myself, but I definitely prefer not to. It's a lot of hair. I used to start with little pieces, and then it just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
In my career, I am so so happy and grateful for everything I've gotten to do. And yet, I wish I had started off earlier so I could, I don't know... I certainly have not not gotten work because of my age, but I'm just gonna pray and hope that the roles will still keep coming as I get older.
Throughout my career I've played a lot of parts that might've been played by a man. They're human roles rather than specifically men or women. I've never been as hooked into that as a lot of women are, you know, like, 'There aren't enough roles for women.' There aren't necessarily a lot of good roles for anybody.
Came to acting pretty late. It looked wonderful, but I guess I was intimidated by my father. I look a bit like him, and he was so much bigger than life and so great, it took me a bit longer than most people to have enough confidence in myself.
I've actually got turned down for a lot of roles because I'm not bubbly enough. People have told me to be more 'up', but I can't, really. I find it hard to be smiley and giggly all the time.
When I was about 14 or 15, and running in a pretty muddy cross country race, one of my shoes stuck in the mud and came off. Boy, was I wild. To think that I had trained hard for this race and didn't do up my shoelace tightly enough! I really got aggressive with myself, and I found myself starting to pass a lot of runners. As it turned out, I improved something like twenty places in that one race. But I never did get my shoe back.
Other people want a career or success because they think that will help them find their personal life somewhere. I've done it the other way around. What I have is what everybody else is looking for. I know I've got it made. I know I'm a very lucky man. That came first. Then the music and the career just kind of took care of themselves.
We have to program the mind of the public that age is not ugly. Age is just age. Wake up, American children, and stop listening to other people's voices. Know yourself, be true to yourself and make a contribution. It took me half my life to know myself. I listened to other people's opinions and took them as gospel.
People who cling rigidly to gender binaries are more than welcome to. But for a lot of young people, we're seeing that our gender roles don't have to be dictated by a set of rules made by society. We can do whatever feels natural to us.
I had a couple albums out that sold well for who I was at the time and the type of music I played. People started recognizing my name and face and it helped sell bigger venues. I had a bigger spotlight and I had to live up to it but I thrived under that challenge. It expedited the creative process. If I was on stage in front of 300 people instead of 30, I had to work harder at my performances because I had a greater responsibility. It was very exciting, but creative too.
Sometimes I think that it is enough to say that if we don't sit down and shut up once in a while we'll lose our minds even earlier than we had expected. Noise is an imposition on sanity, and we live in very noisy times.
I took my job for Nickelodeon very seriously, and back then, it wasn't certainly as big of a network as it is now, culturally, and people my age didn't know much about it. But I loved my time there. I really put everything I had into doing 'Guts,' and it actually taught me a lot about how to work really hard.
I'm very proud of my career. A lot of people get their career from the judges of 'Drag Race' saying they're great. I had to go and build that reputation from the ground up.
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