Ruby Dee Quotes

I'm a single parent, a working mother, an executive, and an author. My greatest accomplishment will be to raise three wonderful children.

Balancing my film career and my music will be something I'm just going to have to deal with, as it happens. I think I can balance it out; the choices will probably be pretty clear. If there's a movie I just have to do, I will work the music around it.

While raising my children, I would like to take on other challenges.

When you get married and have children, and you start having hits and success and your business starts growing, there's less and less time for songwriting.

You can have it all, but you can't do it all.

It was by coincidence that I ended up opening my first shop in 1968, and I haven't stopped since. I now find myself trying to do everything. I couldn't live without creating my collections, without writing, drawing and reading. But I couldn't either live without being close to my children on a daily basis and also to my grandchildren, and to all the people I love. I guess I am like every woman today, one who juggles her work and family life.

What I learned, more than anything, was that you can't have it all balanced perfectly at any one time. When I was young, it was much more balanced toward work. When I had my children, it was much more balanced toward love and family, and I didn't get a lot of work done. So you can't ask of it to be perfectly balanced at any time, but your hope is, before you die, you've somehow had each of those spheres come to life. That's probably more important than success in any one of those spheres alone.

Between writing, traveling, speaking, preaching, and doing my best to be a good husband to my wife and my three kids, that's about as much as one man or at least this man can do.

You must master your time rather than becoming a slave to the constant flow of events and demands on your time. And you must organize your life to achieve balance, harmony, and inner peace.

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.

I think my children know that Mother's priority is to be with them first. But I don't think it has to be an either/or situation. Work is very important to me, and it wouldn't be in the best interest of my children for me to stay home seven days a week.

The balancing act of motherhood and a career, and being a wife, is something that I don't think I'll ever perfect, but I love the challenge of it.

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.

I'm a full-time dad; I'm a part-time actor.

If I was a little bit younger I would worry more. I'd want to do one thing at a time but now I try to do a bunch of different things at a time if I can.

I don't want to abandon one work for the other, and I don't think I need to sacrifice anything to put my all into either one of them.

You can't do it all. You get many requests all the time, but I still have to focus on football, still have to live my life a little bit. But there are definitely times during the week when you want to take time out.

I want to be playing music, and I want to be a great mom, and I want to do everything.

One of the nice things about being busy is it makes you focus on what's important to you and how you use your time.

One has to divide attention between having kids and a full workload.

My message to the ladies would be, you can do all of the things, but not all of them at the same time.

Life's a balancing act. You have multiple roles and goals, and you can do it all - just not all at once.

Maybe I don't ever fully switch off, but I think the way I offset that is by splitting my time between film and music. I always want to challenge myself and grow, fail, self-flagellate, and then try again.

My dad gave me this advice: 'Make what you want to do for the rest of your life the first thing you do in the day and then worry about hanging out with friends.'

When priorities are proper, the power to endure is increased. And when internalized, those priorities will help keep you from "going overboard."