Priyanka Chopra Quotes

If you can't see it, you can't be it.

We always talk about how important representation is. It's so important to see someone that looks like you - whether you're African American, Asian, Indian or whatever your background is - doing incredible things. It's just motivation to go out there and do incredible things yourself.

It's hard to be what you can't see.

There is power in seeing a face that looks like yours do something, be someone. There is power in moving from the sidelines to the center.

It's important for kids to see someone who looks like them carving his own path. I definitely acknowledge that, and I think it's super great.

I thought, 'Oh, this is great,' because maybe someone who does look like me will watch 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' and realize that they can be an actor if they want to be, or they can be a superhero. They can have a hero that looks like them as well.

I hope that there's a little black boy somewhere in Montana that never thought that he would see a reflection of himself, and he turns on the television, like, 'Oh my God, thank you.'

I didn't have a hero playing in sports that looked like me.

When I get to meet my audience when I go speak at colleges or when I'm walking down the street, it's been really eye-opening how many people have been touched to see someone that looks like them on television.

I feel bad for my little cousins who don't see themselves being represented, or the little girls in my community who won't have a chance to see a Disney princess... who resembles them.

There's room for everyone, and everyone is wanted and needed. Whoopi showed me that. When I first saw 'The Color Purple,' it was so huge. That was the first time I had seen myself, my mother, my aunts, women that I had known my whole life on-screen. It gives us hope, and it gives us confidence.

In the Royal Ballet Company, there was a Japanese principal dancer, and onstage and in ballet, they have colorblind castings - so I did see Asian dancers, and they were always my favorite. When you have someone who looks like you, it's something you can kind of grab onto, and it makes you feel better about your place in the world.

When I saw Neneh Cherry singing on TV, I was so glad that there was someone of the same ethnicity - and with the same curly hair - for me to look up to.

I grew up never seeing myself on-screen, and it's really important to me to give people who look like me a chance to see themselves. I want to see myself as the hero of any story. I want to see myself save the world from the bomb.

I feel I'll take on the responsibility of showing the world a whole different kind of Latin woman.

I remember watching Barbra Streisand and seeing Jennifer Grey in 'Dirty Dancing' - these were people who acted like me and looked like me. Now it's great that everyone on 'Glee' is so unique and people can relate to us and look up to us.

Role models really matter. It's hard to imagine yourself as something you don't see.

It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.

I grew up watching cinema in my country that wasn't telling stories about us, and we had to find a way to connect, and our references, our role models had nothing to do with us. And I'm so glad that it's changing.

A hero that doesn't look like you makes you want to be something else.

It's so important for young girls of color - young girls of any color - to see diverse women as the heroes of their own story.

I just didn't see anyone on TV who looked like me, and then I saw George Takei being cool and piloting the spaceship on television.

When I was younger, I didn't have that type of person that I could look up to and be like, 'OK, this is someone who dresses like me and I relate to.' I didn't have that growing up, so to give that opportunity to a younger generation of women - and not just Somali women, but anyone who feels different - that means a lot to me.

I never saw a little African-American girl saving the world. So to be able to be that for not only myself but girls who look like me is really important and inspiring. Unfortunately, we don't see ourselves saving the world a lot, and if we do see any type of superhero, that person usually has superpowers.

I loved her music and the fact that she was a classically trained pianist and that her voice was so unique, but what made Nina Simone my hero is that I had never seen anyone in the public eye who looked anything like me at all, ever.