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There Are Things That I Would Like To Do, But I Make A Big Distinction Between Liking To Do Something And Wanting To Do Something. If There's Something That I Want To Do I've Done It. If There's Something That Comes Up That I Want To Do I Will Do It.

-Morgan Freeman

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There Are Things That

Morgan Freeman

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There Are Things That I Would Like To Do, But I Make A Big Distinction Between Liking To Do Something And Wanting To Do Something. If There's Something That I Want To Do I've Done It. If There's Something That Comes Up That I Want To Do I Will Do It.

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When I Was Doing Theater, I Was Very Successful At Believing That I Was Great, God's Gift To The Theater.

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Changing The World

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If I Stay At Home, I'm Not Famous. I'm Only Famous When I'm Out In The Streets, So I Don't Go Out On The Streets Much.

I Don't Know What My Favorite Film Of Mine Is... But I Think The Most Important Film I Was In Was Glory.

A Scientist Sounds Like A Scientist Because The Things That Come Out Of Their Mouth Don't Stumble, That's All. If They [said], "and The, Um, A Microwave, Uh," You Know, Then You Don't Sound Right, But If You Can Just Get It Out Without Stumbling Then You're Going To Sound Fine.

So If I Believe In God, And I Do, It's Because I Think I'm God.

I Was Told That I Was Good In My Dance Movement Classes And That I Should Concentrate On Dance Because It Would Enhance My Ability To Get Acting Work.

People Say It's A Movie About Boxing, But... I Don't Agree At All. I Don't Think It's A Movie About Boxing. Boxing Is Like A Platform. It's Just A Stage Where This Is Played Out.

Our Situation, With Global Warming And Air Quality And All Of That, Has Gotten To Be Catastrophic.

Most Of The Time It's The Role. Sometimes It's The Story And Sometimes It Just The Paycheck. It's The Little Movies That Come Out As Stories Or The Fact That I Have Work To Go Out, You Know What I'm Saying, You Can Only Be Out So Long Without Work, You Start Getting Antsy.

I Seldom Get Into The Mood Of The Story. It's Acting. I Go In, I Act, I Quit. I Don't Take Anything Away From It.

I Was A B Student In Math, Simply Because My Teachers Liked Me, As An Actor.

Marijuana Prohibition Is Just The Stupidest Law Possible....jus T Legalize It And Tax It Like We Do Liquor.

I Knew At An Early Age I Wanted To Act. Acting Was Always Easy For Me. I Don't Believe In Predestination, But I Do Believe That Once You Get Where Ever It Is You Are Going, That Is Where You Were Going To Be.

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The Reason Actors, Artists, Writers Have Agents Is Because We'll Do It For Nothing. That's A Basic Fact - You Gotta Do It.

Audiences Believe What You Believe. It's A Matter Of Believing Yourself. If I Believe Me, Then You've Got No Choice. None At All.

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Playing Is No Challenge; Every Time That You Get A Role You Get To Go Play With Other People In The Sandbox And So There Is No Challenge, Real Challenge. The Challenge, The Major Challenge Is Getting The Work, Finding The Sandbox.

I Hate The Word Homophobia. It's Not A Phobia. You Are Not Scared. You Are An Asshole.

Martin Luther King Jr. Is Remembered As Our Prince Of Peace, Of Civil Rights. We Owe Him Something Major That Will Keep His Memory Alive.

Writing I Think, Out Of What All Of Us Do, Writing Is The Hardest. You're The Only Who Start With Nothing Except What's Up Here. You Do That. It's Really Hard I Think, Acting Is Not.

The Public Feels That If It's On The Internet And You Can Access It, You Deserve It. You Haven't Committed Any Kind Of Crime. We May Even Have To Rename Piracy. But In Any Case, We Have To Confront It.

Let Me Be The First To Tell You, Drinking Alcohol Is The Worst Thing To Do In Cold Weather. Hot Soup Is The Best Because The Process Of Digesting Food Helps To Warm You Up.

Attacking People With Disabilities Is The Lowest Display Of Power I Can Think Of

I've Been Living With Myself All Of My Life, So I Know All Of Me. So When I Watch Me, All I See Is Me. It's Boring.

Insanity Is Coasting Through Life.

I Was Raised In Mississippi, So Heat And Humidity Is My Bread And Butter. It Keeps Me Going. I Can't Stand Cold Weather.

Heat And Humidity

...if We Get The Right Kind Of Energy, There Are Endless Amounts. I Think We Should Be Developing Every Kind Of Alternative Fuel That Is Available To Us. That Includes Hydrogen To Soybeans, From Solar To Wind. Whatever We Can Find That Is Going To Help Us Clean Up The Environment We Should Be Working Really Hard On Developing.

There's An Exercise We Do Where Someone Is Sat Behind You And You're Asked To Close Your Eyes And Fall Backwards. That's Acting.

That Is A Big Turn-on For Me, A Director Who Knows What He's Doing And What He Wants, And Knows When He's Gotten What He Wants.

I Believe In Helping The Planet Survive, And That Includes Reaching Out To Help Some Of The Disappearing Creatures Whose Habitats We're Destroying. It's Up To Us To Somehow Reverse That Trend. I Don't Know How We'll Achieve It, But We Need To.

It Can Have An Enormous Effect Because Big Budget Movies Can Have Big Budget Perks, And Small Budget Movies Have No Perks, But What Is The Driving Force, Of Course, Is The Script, And Your Part In It.

We Are Turning Everything On This Planet Into Food For Humans. We'll Eat It And, If We Can't Eat It, We'll Kill It And Take Its Place And Just Move It Out Of The Way.

I Don't Think You're Going To Get Nominated Every Time You Jump Out Of The Box.

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As The Mask Of Deception Falls Off The Face Of Humanity Unveiling The Grim Reality Of Duality In Which Everyone Is A Casualty, No One Will Be Exempt Truth Has Many Shades It's Not A Matter Of Black And White, But Gray Although Many, We Are One, So In The Final Analysis Could It Be That We Are Fighting A War That Can't Be Won?

"you Are The Actor, And I Understand We Already Had Our Sit Down, You Explained Your Concept, Your View," So I Said, "okay, I'm In Your Hands." That Means That If You've Got To Nudge Me A Little Bit To The Right I Move To The Right, Just From The Pressure, Weight, But You Won't Have To Touch Me At All. You Can Come And Go "okay, You Want Me Over Here A Little Bit More," So No Pressure On Us At All That's Easy To Do.

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I Find It Difficult To Watch Myself... I Find It Boring.

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Trying New Things

Learning New Things

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Acting Means Living, It's All I Do.

African American

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Stage Is Really Hard Work. You've Got To Do It Every Night. Not Like Doing It Once And Walking Away.

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I'm Not Sure That My Upbringing Has In Itself Informed My Acting Choices.

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I Grew Up In The South But I Started Dancing In My Twenties When I Got Out Of The Air Force, And Studying Dance, You're Surrounded By Gay Guys All The Time. You Get To Know Them And You Have To Shift Gears!

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Costume Is Always An Asset. Normal Costume You Have A Lot To Say About - If You're Wearing Suits Or Ties, And What Color You Want, And How It's Going To Be Cut, And Stuff Like That, And Whether Or Not You're Going To Wear A Hat, And Blah, Blah, Blah. But, When You're Wearing A Special Costume, And Of Course, Costume Is Probably The Second Ingredient In Character, Script Being First, I Always Find That The Costume Does A Lot To Cement Your Character, To Put It Firmly In Mind.

I've Never Had Any Intimate Relationships With A Dolphin.

Intimate Relationships

All You Have To Do Is Believe, Then You Will See Everything.

If Your Life Turns Out To Be Good And You Have A Tremendous Amount Of Luck In Your Life, It's A Good Thing To Turn Around And Make It Work For Others.

I Think That We Did A Really Good Thing When We Elected Barack Obama. I Read His Books. He Is Absolutely And Totally Qualified For The Job. He's Proven Himself To Be Not Only Qualified For The Job, But Very Good At It. The Things That He's Managed To Get Accomplished In The Face Of So Much Push-back Is Amazing, And I Think - This Is Morgan Freeman's Personal Thought - We're Going To Be In A Lot Of Trouble If We Don't Reelect Him, Because The People On The Other Side Of The Fence Scare Me.

Your Best Posture Is Your Next Posture.

If You're Not Living On The Edge Then You're Taking Up A Little Too Much Space.

I Find That If I Hold Your Hand, It Transfers An Energy First. I Have A Sense Of How You Feel. That's Important To Me Trying To Become Another Person. I Have A Lot Pressure To Bring A Character To Life In Any Kind Of Real Sense.

Someone's Always Going To Come Down On The Side Of The Fence.

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I Once Heard A Wise Man Say There Are No Perfect Men. Only Perfect Intentions.

Give Me Something Interesting To Play And I'm Happy.

If You Dream You've Got To Dream That It's Going To Happen. Remember That. If You Dream You Have To Imagine That It Will Actually Happen.

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I'm Married, I've Been Married To The Same Woman For - Well, I've Been With The Same Woman For Close To...long Enough To Fool Around.

It [love About Acting] Is All About Role Playing - The Same Thing You Do When You're A Kid, When You Play With Dolls Or Toys And Make Up Stories. I Never Grew Out Of It.

I Had Gone To School To Work On Technique And Found It Wasn't Something That Was Really Worthwhile To Me, Although It Probably Was.

Which Lady Would I Like To Meet? Um, I Don't Know That There's Anybody Left That I Didn't Meet. But The One That I Really Wanted To Meet Died And That Was Princess Diana. I Really Wanted To Get To Know Her. I Like Her.

And Some Places You Been Before Are So Great That You Don't Ever Mind Going Back. Some Places You Been Before You Don't Ever Want To Go Back, You Know, Like Montreal In The Winter.

I Don't Need Any More Press. I Get Enough When I Work, But Environmental Causes Is One Place Where You Can Get Me To Open My Mouth. And Put My Foot In It If Necessary. I Think The Only Thing I Do That Gives Me Any Bragging Rights In Terms Of Energy Conservation Is Sailing. Just Using Wind Power.

People Need To Start To Think About The Messages That They Send In The Movies.

I Don't Get Off On Romantic Parts. But I Often Think If I Had Had My Dental Work Done Early On, Well, Maybe.

I Just Wanted To Be An Actor. It's Better To Be Well-rounded.

I Think One Of The Things When You're Casting Children Is You're Also Casting Their Parents.

We’re Turning Everything On The Planet Into Food For Humans So We’re Cutting Down The Rainforests, Displacing All Of The Animals, And We’re Doing All This To Feed Humans... ... Imagine If There Were Only 2 Billion People Polluting? We’re Already Overpopulated. I Feel We’ve Become A Parasite On This Planet. If This Population Keeps Growing, We’ll Just Keep Devouring The Planet, And I Don’t Think It’s Going To Stand For That Very Long.

The Main Thing About Awards In Movies Is That They Can Serve As An Economic Surge For The Film. If You're Movie Gets Nominated For Any Award It Does It A Big Favour. People Might Go And See It Again... They Won't Give Up On It.

One Day Very Soon, We'll Be Asked: What Did We Do. And We Will Say: We Did Everything We Could... We Have To... Because If We Don't There Won't Be Anyone Left To Ask. We Have Never Faced A Crisis This Big, That We Have Never Had Better Ideas To Solve. This Is Our Only Home. We Can Choose Today To Make A World Of Difference.

They're Talking About Kids Who Have Grand Mal Seizures, And They've Discovered That Marijuana Eases That Down To Where These Children Can Have A Life. That Right There, To Me, Says, 'legalize It Across The Board!'

You're Not Going To Be Able To Look Like Anyone Else, No Matter How Hard You Try, Unless You're A Mimic, Then You're Not Acting, You're Just Mimicking. You Can't Go On Being John Wayne, That's John Wayne. So You're Not Going To Steal From John Wayne. I'm Not Going To Steal From John Wayne And You're Not Going To Come Back And Say 'didn't You Get That From The Circus?' You Know. But He Is One Of Those People Who Instructs Me, Whom I Look Up To - Whom I Think Is One Of The Masters Of His Craft That I Am So Enamoured Of.

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The Best Way To Guarantee A Loss Is To Quit.

I'm A Firm Believer That Things Happen As They Should. The Universe Unfolds Just As It's Supposed To.

I Know American Football. I Know A Little Bit About Soccer. I Know Baseball, I Know Basketball. But, Rugby Is A Foreign Language.

I've Just Never Been The Kind Of Actor That Things Have Stayed With. I've Never Needed To Carry A Character Off Stage.

In Growing Up, I Was A Child Of The Movies. I Went To The Movies Every Given Opportunity, And That's Pretty Much What Has Informed A Lot Of My Choices.

People Don't Want To Hang Around Someone That You Don't Know How They're Going To React To Anything You Do Or Say.

Donald Trump Is The Honey Boo Boo Of Rich People.

I Understand That When Gary Oldman Was In That Suit [batman], Sweat Would Just Drip Off Of Him Where They Had To Have Holes In The Gloves Or Something.

Working On Stage Is Really A Great Voice Developer.

I Don't Have Anybody Telling Me What To Say. I Have People Who Would Suggest, Maybe, That I Shouldn't Do This, That Or The Other, But That's Strictly Up To Me.

I Don't Do Cold. My Reaction To Cold Is Drastic. I'm A Southern Boy.

I Don't Have To Do Anything. The Character Is Shaped On The Page.

You Know, The Ancient Egyptians Had A Beautiful Belief About Death. When Their Souls Got To The Entrance To Heaven, The Guards Asked Two Questions. Their Answers Determined Whether They Were Able To Enter Or Not. 'have You Found Joy In Your Life?' 'has Your Life Brought Joy To Others?'

Learning How To Be Still, To Really Be Still And Let Life Happen - That Stillness Becomes A Radiance.

I Have To Deal With Being Famous. Sometimes I Have To Tell People I Don't Do Autographs, Thank You Very Much. At Certain Places, I Refuse To Have My Photograph Taken.

I'm Not Digging Tunnels, I'm Not Building Buildings. My Work Is Not Hard, My Work Is Refreshing, My Work Is Pleasant. The More The Better. Lying Around And Getting No Job Is Debilitating.

As You Grow In This Business, You Learn How To Do More With Less.

I Think You Have To Be Left-brained, To A Certain Extent, To Understand Science. I Can Talk About It, But I Can't Do It.

This Kid Came Up With Napster, And Before That, None Of Us Thought Of Content Protection.

I'm Not A Comedian. I Don't Make Things Funny If They're Not Funny. I Don't Invent Funny Stuff.

You Do A Movie. However Long It Lasts, It Begins And It Ends In A Relatively Short Period Of Time. In A Given Period Of Time, Let's Say A Year, You Can Have Three, Four, Or Five Different Experiences Which Is Exciting.

Different Experiences

When I Was A Teenager, I Began To Settle Into School Because I'd Discovered The Extracurricular Activities That Interested Me: Music And Theater.

If You're Going To Play A Brain Surgeon, You Just Have To Learn How To Say The Words. You Don't Have To Go And Learn How To Cut Open Somebody's Scalp. I Think Acting Is Acting. Being Is Something Else.

You Want To Retire From A Job You're Not That All Enamoured With. I Love What I Do. I Want To Keep Doing It Till I Can't Get Out Of Bed Doing It.

I Would Never Complain That Hollywood Is Racist When I'm One Of The People Touted As A Welcome Entity There.

Look At, Look, The Tea Partiers, Who Are Controlling The Republican Party....their Stated Policy, Publicly Stated, Is To Do Whatever It Takes To See To It That Obama Only Serves One Term. What's, What Does That, What Underlines That? 'screw The Country. We're Going To Whatever We Do To Get This Black Man, We Can, We're Going To Do Whatever We Can To Get This Black Man Outta Here... It Is A Racist Thing.

If I Wasn't Acting, I Have No Clue What I'd Be Doing 'cause I Have No Other Talent.

Being Blind Is As Simple As Closing Your Eyes. The Blind Don't Act Any Different Than You Or I. You Never See A Blind Person Going Around Saying, 'i'm Blind.' So If You Want To Play Blind Just Close Your Eyes And Keep Them Closed And Fare Thee Well.

The Surest Way To Lose At Any Endeavor Is To Quit.

I Always Tell My Kids If You Lay Down, People Will Step Over You. But If You Keep Scrambling, If You Keep Going, Someone Will Always, Always Give You A Hand. Always. But You Gotta Keep Dancing, You Gotta Keep Your Feet Moving.

If You're Comfortable On A Horse, You're Comfortable On A Horse. It's Like Being On A Motorbike.

A Lot Of People Are Going Around Saying, 'you Won The Academy Award For Such And Such.' 'no. I Didn't.' 'you Didn't?' 'well, You Should Have.'

Somebody Once Said To Me After I'd Done "deep Impact," "what Is It Like To Play A Black President," And I Said, "i Didn't Play A Black President. I Played A President. I Just Happened To Be Black. There's A Difference.

Hey, If I Don't Have A Job, I Don't Know Why I Bother To Get Up. Any Time The Phone Rings, I'm Ready To Go. What Else Am I Going To Do? See, I've Never Retired. I Don't Even Know What It Means.

I Like Working With Directors Because I'm Really Opinionated About What Things Work And May Not Work, What Audiences Like And May Not Like, (not Really) But I Do Have Opinions About Things. I Like To Be Able To Say Them And Then Have Them Acted On. The Director Who Responds To Me Like That, Always Gets My Appreciation. I Do Appreciate It. What I Find Is The Best Directors, No Matter What Kind Of Name They Have, Are Like That.

I'm Also Very Fond Of A Light Business Jet, So I'd Like To Get It Before It's Too Late.

Is There A Movie I Think I Should Have Won The Oscar For? Yeah. All Of Them.

I Don't Think That Anyone Learns Anything. Well, I Mean, You Do Always Learn Something If You Have Your Eyes And Ears Open. You Do Learn Something From Every Outing, Every Time That You Go For It. But For Me What Actors Do Is Interact And That's Why You Have To Do That.

I Always Knew That Someone Was Going To Come At Me With A Script To Play God. It's Just One Of Those Things, The Way Your Career Is Unfolding And All The Talk About Gravitas Etc Etc, So I Had A Strong Feeling That Someone Was Going To Offer Me The Part Of God. I Was Totally Prepared To Say, 'thanks But No Thanks,' Unless It Was A Comedy.

Literacy Could Be The Ladder Out Of Poverty

Don't Be Afraid Of What You Want. This Is Your Time. The Barriers Are Down.

It's What I Learn From The Great Actors That I Work With. Stillness. That's All And That's The Hardest Thing.

There's No Mystery To It. Nothing More Complicated Than Learning Lines And Putting On A Costume.

I've Travelled A Lot, But I Am Essentially American. All My Input Has Been American.

Get Busy Livin' Or Get Busy Dyin'.

I Was Very Lucky Once I Got Started With A Career. I Happened To Get Some Really Good Parts To Play With Some Really Good People To Play With.

Don't Be Different Just For Different's Sake. If You See It Differently, Function That Way. Follow Your Own Muse, Always.

So We Say, Oh, My Goodness; We Think We've Found Another Earth-like Planet. We Will Start Trying To Figure Out How To Get There. And I Have This Strong Belief That Whatever We Think We Can Do, Whatever We Can Dream, We Can Do.

I Don't Remember What My Favourite Comedy Film Is - Truthfully! I Saw Borat And I Thought I Was Not Going To Be Able To Get Out Of The Theatre Because I Was In So Much Pain From The Laughter.

I Want To Be Up There, Being Lauded And Applauded And Given All These And On The Red Carpet, Waving At The Hordes Of People.

No One Is Really A Method Actor, Everyone Has Their Way Of Going About It, Preparing For It, But Method Is Preparation, It's What You Do To Prepare. So My Method Is To Read The Script. Some Actors' Method Is To Read The Script A Hundred Times And In The Doing Of It, To Immerse Themselves In As Much Of The Reality As Possible. Me, I Believe Strictly In Acting. If I Am Out Of Breath, I'm Out Of Breath. I Ain't Running Nowhere.

I Think You Take A Job, You Owe It As Much Passion As The Job Itself Demands. And Most Jobs Demand That You Be Totally Committed.

Insanity Is Being Shit On, Beat Down, Coasting Through Life In A Miserable Existence When You Have A Caged Lion Locked Inside And A Key To Release It.

I Don't Want A Black History Month. Black History Is American History.

Rob [reiner] Is A Teddy Bear. He's Hell Delicious. He's A Really Good Director. He's A Great Soul. In The Movie Business, I Would Call Him A Movie Mom. The Only Person I Hold In Equal Esteem Is Clint Eastwood. Now I Have Worked With A Lot Of Terrific Directors, And I Don't Mean To Be Putting Any Of Them Below Their Own Station, But These Two, I Relish Working With Them.

I Know People Are Saying They Like You. I'm Not Being Insulted Or Pushed Around Or Anything. People Are Coming Up Because They Like Me. Nevertheless, I Can't Be Everybody's...none Of Us Can. I Hate Saying No To People.

I Try To Keep My Mind Active. I'm A Solitaire And Puzzle Addict. I Exercise Religiously. I Don't Do Many Things Religiously And I've Taken Up Golf To Have Something To Do When I Have Nothing To Do.

I Think The Best Thing Somebody Ever Did To Me Was My Mother Opening Her Legs And Squirting Me Out.

Very Often, You Know, You Stop Walking Because You Say, 'well, I'm Tired Of Climbing This Hill. I'm Never Going To Get To The Top.' And You're Only Two Steps From The Top.

I Have A Problem With Writer/directors, Personal. I Can't Work Well With Both Of Them On The Set, If Both Of Them Are Giving Instructions. Writers Tend To Be In Love With What They Wrote. You Can't Always Translate The Words Into The Meaning, Sometimes The Meaning Is Better Served Without The Words, Difficult To Make A Writer To Try To Understand That. It Gets, Sometimes, Tense.

I Think The Educational Value Is What Comes First. I've Always Thought That The Most Effective Tools We Have For Disseminating Information, I.e. Education, Is Television And Film.

Forgiveness Liberates The Soul, It Removes Fear.

Actors Cannot Work Against Each Other. It's Totally Impossible.

Flip On The News And Watch How We Treat The Batman Theater Shooter And The Oregon Mall Shooter Like Celebrities. Dylan Klebold And Eric Harris Are Household Names, But Do You Know The Name Of A Single ‘victim’ Of Columbine?

And Finding The Hat, I Always Like To Find The Hat. And Then Props Just Dress The Set. It's All Fabulous.

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