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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.

-Morgan Freeman

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We Are Turning Everything

Morgan Freeman

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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.

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

My Earrings Are Worth Just Enough To Buy Me A Coffin If I Die In A Strange Place. That Was The Reason Why Sailors Used To Wear Them.

I Can Remember When I First Got To Los Angeles . I Didn't Have A Car, I Didn't Have Any Money. I Was Walking The Streets, You Know, Trying To Get From Place To Place On Foot Almost. Sometimes, You Know, You Say, How Am I Ever Going To Get From Here To There? There Are A Lot Of People Still Having That Dream And Not Being Able To Get There. So You Never Know. The Idea Is To Keep On Tap Dancing, Though.

The Bigger Point Here Is That Golf Is A Good Metaphor For One's Life. The Challenge Of Golf For Me Is Trying To Learn New Rules. It's Something You Always Have To Work At; You Don't Get Perfect At Golf. It's The Never-ending Quest For Betterment.

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

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

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.

If We Don't Save The Oceans, If We Don't Do Something About What We're Doing To The Oceans, As Well As The Planet At Large, We're Going To Be Really Sorry.

Race Seems To Me To Be Less And Less A Subject Worth Discussing.

I'm Not One Who Can Write Out A Speech And Remember All The Names Of The People That You Need To Thank Because You Need To Thank All Of Those People.

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

Someone's Going To Put The Clothes On You, And Part Of Being An Actor Is Wearing Costumes. Costumes Tell You An Awful Lot About Who You Are, So You Just, It's Nothing.

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.'

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?'

If You're Playing Somebody Who Is Not You, Then You Can Imagine That You Are That Person. You Can Feel Like He Feels, Move Like He Moves, Look Like He Looks - In Your Own Mind.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Life Doesn't Offer You Promises Whatsoever So It's Very Easy To Become, 'whatever Happened To... ?' It's Great To Be Wanted. I Spent A Few Years Not Being Wanted And This Is Better.

I'm Always Trying New Things And Learning New Things. If There Isn't Anything More You Can Learn - Go Off And Die.

Trying New Things

Learning New Things

It's Seldom That You Get To Work With One Director More Than Once. I've Worked With Clint Eastwood Three Times, But That's The Only One That's Happened With, Simply Because I Adore His Work.

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.

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.

I Don't Do Comedy. I Think If A Situation Is Funny You Just Play It For Real And If It's Funny, It's Funny.

In My Career? Me. I'm The Boss. I'm The End All And Be All. I'm The Alpha And Omega In That.

Nobody Is Trying To Save Energy. We're Trying To Shift Our Use Of Fuel. Forget Saving Energy; If We Get The Right Kind Of Energy, There Are Endless Amounts.

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

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

Working On Stage Is Really A Great Voice Developer.

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'm Easy Going For The Most Part But Sometimes In The Morning If I Didn't Sleep Well I Can Be Kind Of Grumpy. But My Grumpiness Doesn't Have That Much To Do With My Dissatisfaction With My Station In Life.

The Best Way To Confront, Or Deal With, Technological Innovation Is To Keep Moving Technologically.

If You Want To See A Miracle, Be The Miracle

I've Always Been Really Hot On Westerns. All My Life Growing Up, Cowboy, Cowboy, Cowboy.

I'm Making A Great Effort Because Sometimes Life Is Not Enjoyable. Sometimes It's Painful And Sometimes It's Stressful, Sometimes It's Agonizing Even, So I Think Once You Get Around Those Humps: Strive For Pleasure And Peace.

All My Life, All My Life That I Can, As Far Back As I Can Remember, I Saw My First Movie When I Was Six Years Old. And Since Then I Wanted To Do That. I Wanted To Be A Part Of That.

From Early Childhood, My Thrust Was To Get Into The Movies.

Early Childhood

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.

I Am Impatient With Directors Who Don't Know What They Want, And The Way You Don't Know What They Want Is Because They Want To Do One More. "let's Do One More." So, "what For?" I Guarantee You There's Not Going To Be A Change.

You Can't Take Credit For Talent; You Can Only Take Credit For Using It.

I Remember Saying To My Agent, "listen, Everybody's Going Out To Hollywood And Making Movies. I Think I Ought To Go Out There." And His Advice To Me Was, "i Wouldn't Do That If I Were You. If They Want You In Hollywood, They'll Send You." And Sure Enough, They Did.

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.

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

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

If You Sat Down And You Wrote A Script, You May Write Something That's Way Beyond What You've Ever Seen Me Do, But If You Thought Of Me To Do It, I Would Be Flattered To Be Asked To Do Something Other Than Be Wise.

Challenge Yourself; It’s The Only Path Which Leads To Growth.

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.

Acting Means Living, It's All I Do And All I'm Good At. If I Weren't Getting Paid Well, I Would Still Be Acting In A Small Troupe Somewhere.

I Believe It Doesn't Really Matter Where You Work As Long As You Work. Keep Sharpening Your Teeth.

"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.

In The Harshest Place On Earth, ... Love Finds A Way.

Doing Comedy Is As Easy As Doing Anything Else. You're Dependent Totally On The Material.

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.

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.

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.

My Approach To Acting Is That I Am Totally Intuitive. I Read The Script And I Get It. If I Don't Get It, I Can't Do It.

Ive Got A Lot Of Life Left In Me And I Want To Live It Doing Things I Like To Do.

That's Your Job As The Actor, To Understand The Human Part Of The Character, To Make It Real.

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

I Never Think About Awards Or Anything Like That When I Do A Job. I Was First Named A Best Actor When I Was 12 Years Old And It Doesn't Really Mean Anything When You Get Down To It, Because There Is No Best. I Don't Get All That Involved. My Chest Puffs Up As Much As I Can Puff It Up But I Am Not Trying To Be Better Than The Person I Am Acting With. I Am Trying To Be At Least As Good. That's How It Works.

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.

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.

The Highest Power Is The Human Mind. That's Where God Came From And My Belief In God Is My Belief In Myself.

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.

How Do We Change The World? One Random Act Of Kindness At A Time.

Changing The World

Freeman Denied The Claim That He Was A “man Of God”, Saying That “the Question Of Faith Is Whatever You Actually Believe Is. We Take A Lot Of What We're Talking About In Science On Faith; We Posit A Theory, And Until It's Dis-proven We Have Faith That It's True. If The Mathematics Work Out, Then It's True, Until It's Proven To Be Untrue.

If You Look Back On Your Life And Where You Started From It's Like Looking Back Down A Mountain Back To The Desert Floor. It's Like Now I Can't Believe I Had Whatever It Takes Or Perceived Whatever It Took To Get Here.

Part Of Acting Is Having The Security To Turn Yourself Loose And Let Yourself Go In Order To Reach Whatever Depths A Character Has. If Your Guts Aren't Hanging Out There, You Don't Offer Anything.

But I Was 22 Before I Took My First Dance Class. I Had Never Been Athletic, So I Was Very Stiff; I Still Am. I Think What I Got Mostly From Dance Was Carriage.

When I Was Growing Up, I Didn't See Me In The Movies Except In Certain Lesser Roles. If It Wasn't Funny, I Wasn't There. Then Sidney Poitier Came Along, And He Wasn't Funny. He Was Just Good. There's Me. So That Was My Pattern.

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.

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.

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.

Acting Means Living, It's All I Do.

African American

Your Job Is Always The Same If It's A Juggernaut Or If It's Just One Of These Little Jewels Of A Film That's Gonna Wind Up At The Laemmle Or Something, So Your Job Doesn't Change Whatsoever... Give It Your Best Shot.

We Humans Are More Concerned With Having Than With Being.

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.

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?

The Odds Are Lousy That I Actually Said Something Attributed To Me.

I Am Passionate About What Is Going On With The Oceans, Mainly Because We Are For Some Idiotic Reason, Really Screwing It Up. I Mean, We're Really Killing The Ocean. It's Like Putting Out The Sun. Without It, There Is No Us.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Have Never Acted He Has Never Been Cast In A Romantic Lead Or Has Been Cast Opposite A Female Love Interest In Any Movie He Starred In.

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.

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

My Job, Personally, Is To Do As Much As I Can To Spread The Warning That If We're Not Careful, It Will End. The Problem Is, We Don't Think Beyond Our Immediate Needs.

But I Can Say That Life Is Good To Me. Has Been And Is Good. So I Think My Task Is To Be Good To It. So How Do You Be Good To Life? You Live It.

Did You Just Call Me Old? I Really Prefer The Word 'experienced'.

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 Go On Vacation Strictly To Relax - To Kick Back With A Good Book And Do Nothing Else But Read, Sleep And Eat.

I Do Know There Are A Lot Of People Who Seem To Be In My Corner, And That's, Of Course, Wonderful. I'm Really More Interested In The Nomination Than In The Award, Because I Think The Nomination Just Puts You Within A Group Of Outstanding Actors.

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

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

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.

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

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

I Can Only Be So Long Without Work Before I Start Getting Antsy.

I Have Four Children And Nine Grandchildren. I'm Presently Wearing Out My Second Wife.

Fatigue, Discomfort, Discouragement Are Merely Symptoms Of Effort.

Everybody Works The Same, But The Preparation Very Often May Be Different. You Cannot Work Differently. You Have To Say The Words That Were Written On The Page, And You Have To Make Your Marks. That's The Work.

I Am Going To Stop Calling You A White Man And I'm Going To Ask You To Stop Calling Me A Black Man.

I've Always Been A Fan Of Or Desired To Or Responded To Variety. I Like Variety In Life, So Variety In Work Is A Must.

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

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've Never Had Any Intimate Relationships With A Dolphin.

Intimate Relationships

If You Get Called On To Help Somebody Pull Focus To Some Good Cause, That's Good Use Of Your Fame. I Don't Try To Avoid That.

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.

These Walls Are Funny. First You Hate 'em, Then You Get Used To 'em. Enough Time Passes, You Get So You Depend On Them. That's Institutionalized.

The Accident Was A Horrible Thing - But That Horrible Thing Made Chris, At The End Of His Life, Superman. It's A Happy Irony If There Is Such A Thing. I'm Proud To Have Known Him.

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!

Well, Here’s A Scientific Question: Has Anybody Ever Seen Hard Evidence? What We Get Is Theories From Our Earlier Prophets. Now, People Who Think That God Invented Us Think That The Earth Can’t Be More Than 6,000 Years Old. So I Guess It’s A Question Of Belief. My Belief System Doesn’t Support A Creator As Such, As We Can Call God, Who Created Us In His/her/its Image.

Literacy Could Be The Ladder Out Of Poverty

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

Finding Joy Is Probably Tantamount To Finding Yourself And Being Comfortable In Your Own Skin.

Finding Yourself

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

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.

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

And That If You Become A Star, People Are Going To Go To See You. If You Remain An Actor, They're Going To Go And See The Story You're In.

It Seems To Me That I Never Grow Unless I'm Actually Working With Other Actors Who Have Shed Whatever Shell It Is That Keeps Them Insulated From Each Other.

Working With Others

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.

The Trick To Any Profession Is Making It Look Easy.

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.

Your Best Posture Is Your Next Posture.

Get Busy Livin' Or Get Busy Dyin'.

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

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

Insanity Is Coasting Through Life.

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.

Never Let Pride Be Your Guiding Principle. Let Your Accomplishments Speak For You.

Guiding Principles

I Avoid Seeing Myself While I'm Working On Role So I Won't See "me."

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.

Donald Trump Is The Honey Boo Boo Of Rich People.

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

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 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.

My Roots Were Pretty Far Removed From High Income. It's Interesting To Be Back There At The Level Of Income I Have Now, At This Stage In My Life.

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.

I Really Wanted To Work With Luc Besson. I'm A Big Fan Of His. Did You Ever See 'the Professional.' It Was Very Violent. But A Fabulous Story, A Fabulous Movie, Very Well Done. So That And Two Or Three Other Projects Of His That I've Seen, I Just Thought If I Had A Shot To Work With Him I Wanted To Do It.

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.

I'm Not Intimidated By Lead Roles. I'm Better In Them. I Don't Feel Pressure. I Feel Released At Times Like That. That's What I'm Born To Do.

I Got My First Job As A Card-carrying Actor In New York In 1967. Before That, I Was A Very Desperate Wannabe.

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.

What Do I Want To Do? Acting Wise? Well, There's A Western That I Want To Do. There's A Lot Of Producing That I Want To Do, Projects That I Have Stacked Up That Are In My Office That I'd Like To Get Done.

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.

If You Live A Life Of Make-believe, Your Life Isn't Worth Anything Until You Do Something That Does Challenge Your Reality. And To Me, Sailing The Open Ocean Is A Real Challenge, Because It's Life Or Death.

Growing Up In Mississippi, I Realized That It Was Separate And Unequal And All That, But It Was Still A Safe Place.

You Can Make Anything Into A Play For The Simple Reason That The Human Mind Is One Of The Best Writers In The Business. So, If You've Got A Writer Who's Clever Enough To Give You Enough Clues, You Will Fill Out Every Blank Spot In A Play, Every Single One.

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!'

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

I Like The Character Roles. Somewhere Back There I Really Came To The Conclusion In My Mind That The Difference Between Acting And Stardom Was Major. And That If You Become A Star, People Are Going To Go To See You. If You Remain An Actor, They're Going To Go And See The Story You're In.

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

Forgiveness Liberates The Soul, It Removes Fear.

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

Once You've Gotten The Job, There's Nothing To It. If You're An Actor, You're An Actor. Doing It Is Not The Hard Part. The Hard Part Is Getting To Do It.

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.

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.

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.

The First Thing That Always Pops Into My Head Regarding Our President, Is That All Of The People Who Are Setting Up This Barrier For Him... They Just Conveniently Forget That Barack Had A Mama, And She Was White - Very White; American, Kansas, Middle Of America. There Is No Argument About Who He Is, Or What He Is. America's First Black President Hasn't Arisen Yet. He's Not America's First Black President. He's America's First Mixed-race President.

I Gravitate Towards Gravitas.

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

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

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

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

In My Home, Who Is My Boss? If You Ask My Wife She'll Say Certainly Not Her. She Claims That She Can't Make Me Do Anything And So She's Not My Boss. I Am. I'm Pretty Sure, Maybe.

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

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

It's Sort Of Well-known That Anytime Any Catastrophe Happens Anywhere In The World, They Can Count On The United States For Help.

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

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

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

I Was Always Ambitious. I Always Wanted To Be More Than I Was....i Always Wanted To Be A Movie Actor.

The Best Way To Guarantee A Loss Is To Quit.

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.

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

Never Give Up The Ganja.

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

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.

As Long As You Feel Like A Victim, You Are One.

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.

My Parents Were Working In A Hospital In Memphis. But I Didn't Live There For Any Length Of Time That I Remember. The First Thing I Remember Is The Town In Mississippi That I Live In Now, Charleston.

There Is No Such Thing As Homophobia. It Is Not A Fear. It Is You Being An Asshole.

One Universe, Four Forces, Billions Of Galaxies. The Precision And Complexity Of Our World Is Enough To Make Even The Famous Cosmologist Go Just A Little Bit Crazy. How Does It All Fit Together? Is There A Single, Overarching Design To The Cosmos? And If We Find It, Will We Glimpse The Mind Of God?

How Are We Going To Get Rid Of Racism? Stop Talking About It!

Black History Month

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

I Have To Remind Myself That Some Birds Aren't Meant To Be Caged. Their Feathers Are Just Too Bright. And When They Fly Away, The Part Of You That Knows It Was A Sin To Lock Them Up Does Rejoice.

That's Really Just The Worst Part Of Life Really, You Get Bracketed Somewhere And The Next Thing You Know People Are Saying, 'no. No. That's Not The Type. Get Me So And So.' I'm Not A Type. I'm An Actor.

Marketing Only Really Works With Word Of Mouth.

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

Anyone Who Spends A Significant Amount Of Time With Me Finds Me Disagreeable.

If Your Income On Films Or Whatever You're Producing Using Film Drops Below A Certain Level, Then You Don't Have Enough Money To Stay In Business. People Like To Say That This Is All Just About Making Money, But If You Don't Make Money, You Don't Make Anything.

Let Me Tell You About Being Executive Producer. It Is Not A Job, It's A Title. Don't Go Around Asking Executive Producers What They Do Because They Don't Do Anything, Alright?

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.

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

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

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