I've got this silver necklace and silver cross that my mom got me that I always wear during games. I don't know if it's superstition as much as it's the fact I wouldn't even feel right not wearing it.

When I was in Milwaukee, I would go into this sneaker shop near my mom's salon and chop it up with the older heads about music. At school, I would make drum noises on the table so much that I would always get suspended.

My mom is incredibly stylish, and she gets it from my grandmother. I feel like I can't live up to how chic they are as women. They are great role models for aging gracefully, and that's a thing that is very key that I try to always emulate.

My mom always bails me out of things when I get in trouble.

You see people, you judge. It's just the human thing to do - good or bad, it's a fact. Like when you get a coffee at Starbucks and the person is rude to you. My mom always says, 'Yeah, but you don't know what kind of day they're having.' You don't know the back-story, and that's why it's so fun to be an actor and to get into the back-story.

Self-care. I got that from my mom. Even if we had nothing, we were always moisturized. So much Vaseline. In the dead of winter, I was hot. I had a whole other layer on.

I was sitting on my mom's lap across from my father to see Kay Thompson at Ciro's. And I always remember this energy force, this woman flying around the room and singing these harmonies so everyone went, 'Wow!' So I thought, 'That's what I want to do.'

I come from a short fiction background, and my mom is a poet, so I've always read poetry; I've always had a lot of different influences both linguistically and musically.

I don't want to be perfect, but I do want to be a role model. My mom always tells me that imperfections equal beauty. All of us are imperfect.

Even in high school, I'd tell my mom I was sick of swimming and wanted to try to play golf. She wasn't too happy. She'd say, 'Think about this.' And I'd always end up getting back in the pool.

My mom is just so good with fashion! She always tells me what looks good, what doesn't look good, and she gives me great advice.

In the Dominican, there are a lot of kids who need help. I just do that for my mom because my mom liked to help a lot of kids in the Dominican. Whoever I am right now is because of her. She gave me the education; she always took care of me like a mommy.

My mom used to be concerned 'cause I would never go outside. And when I'd go outside, I'd have friends, but I just was always in the house listening to music, practicing DJing all the time. Then my uncle got a keyboard, drum machine, so I'd just be in the house at 12, 13, just, like, messing up his presets. And my mom was like, 'My son is strange.'

There are days I'm feeling lazy, and my mom will remind me, 'Beyonce also only has 24 hours during the day.' That always keeps me going.

My goal is to be a household name, and when I do that, I want to help other girls become models, and maybe even launch a fashion line with my mom, like Beyonce did with her mother. My mom has such a good eye, and it's always been a dream of hers.

My mom is the most positive person. She has always had a smile on her face no matter what came her way. After seeing that, I'm not going to let a little cellulite get in the way of my happiness!

It's always been my mom and I against the world.

I loved theater growing up, and my mom always took us to the touring productions that would come through town. We would go to Chicago all the time and see shows. I loved it.

I guess I figured out my dad was a fight coordinator pretty early, because I always saw him running into walls and stuff and nobody got mad at him, but it took me a lot longer to figure out what Mom did, because it was usually stuff on the telephone.

Mom always tells me to celebrate everyone's uniqueness. I like the way that sounds.

I know a lot of people who really aren't beautiful because their attitudes are very nasty... Whether I make the 50 most beautiful list or not, I'm always going to feel like I'm number one most beautiful to myself... I get that from my mom, and my daddy and my friends who raised me.

I always loved playing video games. It was something my mom did, and my sister played as well.

My mom was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice. For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father.

Starting in my teens, I was always standing on the corner near our apartment singing harmony with friends. We'd also go to the park and sing under the bridge near the lake for the echo. When it was cold out, we'd stand in the little heated lobby in the project's administration building, where my mom paid the rent each month.