“For days on end, I would hardly speak, and when I did only the vilest sort of gibberish would spout forth. I became morose and fat. Unapproachable, except when eating – and then only by waiters.”

I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

I’m confident that I’m as intelligent as many people, but I know that I’m not as intelligent as some. So in the presence of hyperintelligent people, I’m a shrinking violet because I don’t want to look like a fool. I know a little about a lot and a lot about a little.

Through books and photographs, I saw a world that was not my own – and I realized that there was another world.

Lay a foundation – get my foot in the door, and then undoubtedly, of course, I would be offered great roles as soon as I grew up enough to handle them.

When the movies first started, audiences were dumbstruck to see actresses walking around in evening gowns. They’d never seen anything like that. They wanted to be like those actors and actresses, so the movies informed their behavior.

I have a ball – and it keeps my heart rate up. I get to wear fabulous clothes. I get to make people laugh. That’s my core business, and that’s where I’ll always return.

When I read that, I burst into tears. It was so generous and so basic. Not fluffy. I can’t understand why we scrimp on education and shortchange our kids. Why would the citizenry do that to the people who are going to inherit its republic?

hen you’re in your third adulthood, the one that leads to the grave, and you ask yourself, “What will I do between now and then?” Instead of thinking in terms of glamour, you start thinking in terms of reform – your contribution to the world.

I’m not interested in perfection. The universe is perfect, and there are some works of art that we see as perfect, but human beings aren’t perfect.

Image is everything, and the voice or the idea or the song is hardly anything at all. Half the time the person isn’t even doing the singing. I’m a bit cynical about this [music] business.

I never know how much of what I say is true.

We’re all divine, but I was the only one who had the nerve to call myself that.

Sold my soul. Bought these devil chains.

I want it all – and I would like it delivered.

It’s important that you all agree on what the parameters are and what you can accomplish – and not get pissed off or beat yourself up for what you can’t accomplish.

Me, I’m just a hack. I’m just a schlep-per. I just do what I can do.

You shouldn’t be eating anything that takes six minutes to microwave.

Strictly cop and go’s until we laid in the Galapagos Eating tacos, higher than an opera note

When I talk about drugs and alcohol, I’m talking about sex addiction, gambling addiction, eating addiction, throwing-up addiction. I’m not talking about mental illness.

When I was 11 my friend’s mom made a peanut butter sandwich. I ate the sandwich and was like, ‘I’m never eating anything else again.’ And I still eat peanut butter every day. I would put peanut butter on a steak.

[That form of] eloquence, the foster-child of licence, which fools call liberty. [Lat., Eloquentia, alumna licentiae, quam stulti libertatem vocabant.]

It is not enough to offer a smorgasbord of courses. We must insure that students are not just eating at one end of the table.

Remedies are more tardy in their operation than diseases.

Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.