“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

You think you can’t change the world? You can.

One of the first things I was taught as an actor was, ‘Don’t judge the character.’

Nobody has to give me permission to write.

They should probably have a James Brown aerobic tape. You would lose a lot of weight.

When you play characters, you shouldn’t just be putting on their characteristics – you should be finding it inside yourself.

You’re not free unless you can show the good and the bad, all sides of them. So to me, when I play a character, it’s important that I can show every aspect of them.

I was raised in a sort of village. I have a huge family, and I think there is strength in that. It helped me to deal with some of the complications of living in the South because I always felt like I belonged, no matter what.

I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.

The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people – to black people.

I’m an artist. Artists don’t need permission to work. Regardless of whether I’m acting or not, I write. I write when I’m tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.

I’m not afraid to work.

When it comes down to it, I’d rather have an action figure than a Golden Globe.

A superhero movie is only as great as its villains.

I would love to have an ocean of love right now. That said, the number-one rule of acting is, ‘Do not seek approval from the audience.’ People don’t realize that. You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.

As an African-American actor, a lot of our stories haven’t been told.

People don’t want to experience change; they just want to wake up, and it’s different.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice.

What all these lofty and vague phrases boil down to is that the court can impose things that the voters don’t want and the Constitution does not require, but which are in vogue in circles to which the court responds.

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.

If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.

Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.

Clearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal power would make it possible.

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.