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Okay Listen, You Think I'm So Inconsequential? Then Try This On For Size. All Those Who See Unworthiness When They Look At Me And Are Given Thereby To Denying Me Value - To You I Say, I'm Not Talking About Being As Good As You. I Hereby Declare Myself Better Than You.

-Sidney Poitier

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Okay Listen, You Think

Sidney Poitier

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Okay Listen, You Think I'm So Inconsequential? Then Try This On For Size. All Those Who See Unworthiness When They Look At Me And Are Given Thereby To Denying Me Value - To You I Say, I'm Not Talking About Being As Good As You. I Hereby Declare Myself Better Than You.

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If You Are Anxious About Death, Then You Don't Have A Sense Of The Oneness Of Things - You Feel That After Death, You Will Be No More.

I Know How Easy It Is For One To Stay Well Within Moral, Ethical, And Legal Bounds Through The Skillful Use Of Words - And To Thereby Spin, Sidestep, Circumvent, Or Bend A Truth Completely Out Of Shape. To That Extent, We Are All Liars On Numerous Occasions.

The Impact Of The Black Audience Is Expressing Itself. They Look To Films To Be More Expressive Of Their Needs, Their Lives. Hollywood Has Gotten That Message - Finally.

When I Set Out To Become An Actor, I Had Set Myself A Standard.

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My Autobiography Was Simply The Story Of My Life.

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If I'm Remembered For Having Done A Few Good Things And If My Presence Here Has Sparked Some Good Energies, That's Plenty.

I Was A Gift To My Mother. She Was A Remarkable Person. God Or Nature, Or Whatever Those Forces Are, Smiled On Her, Then Passed Me The Best Of Her.

I Was Fortunate Enough To Have Been Raised To A Certain Point Before I Got Into The Race Thing. I Had Other Views Of What A Human Is, So I Was Never Able To See Racism As The Big Question. Racism Was Horrendous, But There Were Other Aspects To Life.

If You Apply Reason And Logic To This Career Of Mine, You're Not Going To Get Very Far. You Simply Won't.

I Couldn't Adjust To The Racism In Florida.

My Father Was A Tomato Farmer. There Is The Phrase That Says He Or She Worked Their Fingers To The Bone, Well, That's My Dad. And He Was A Very Good Man.

I'm Going To Quit Writing.

I Don't Very Often Read Novels.

Far As I Can Tell, I Still Have Most Of My Hair, My Gut Is Not Hanging Over My Belt, And I Still Have All Of My Teeth.

We Suffer Pain, We Hang Tight To Hope, We Nurture Expectations, We Are Plagued Occasionally By Fears, We Are Haunted By Defeats And Unrealized Hopes . . . The Hoplessness Of Which I Speak Is Not Limited.

You Don't Have To Become Something That You Aren't To Become Better Than You Are.

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Forgiveness Works Two Ways, In Most Instances. People Have To Forgive Themselves Too. The Powerful Have To Forgive Themselves For Their Behavior. That Should Be A Sacred Process.

If The Image One Holds Of One's Self Contains Elements That Don't Square With Reality, One Is Best Advised To Let Go Of Them, However Difficult That May Be.

I'll Always Be Chasing You... Glory.

My Father Was Very Big On Marriage.

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There Is Not Racial Or Ethnic Domination Of Hopelessness. It's Everywhere.

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An Appreciable Number Of Directors Have Shifted To Lower-cost Films, Allowing Them To Be Satisfied With A More Modest Return.

I Was Born Two Months Early, And Everyone Had Given Up On Me. But My Mother Insisted On My Life.

To Be Compared To Jackie Robinson Is An Enormous Compliment, But I Don't Think It's Necessarily Deserved.

Living Consciously Involves Being Genuine; It Involves Listening And Responding To Others Honestly And Openly; It Involves Being In The Moment.

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True 'joy' Is The Difference Between Just Amusing Ourselves To Death And Creating 'meaningful' Pleasure.

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