Originally I planned on starting a teapot collection. I really like them.

Failure's not a bad thing. It builds character. It makes you stronger.

Originally I planned on starting a teapot collection. I really like them.

Acting, I started when I was six and a half years-old, on Broadway with Kurt Weill.

As for Colt 45, I am very proud of my endorsement of the product, and it still 'Works every time.'

For myself, if I'm trying to obtain a certain longevity in my career, to establish myself as a certain kind of star, I don't want that black exploitation image.

I don't know why everybody thinks I'm smooth. I think I'm just a pretty silly person, really.

I don't want to find myself ever locked into what people think I should think or do. In my art, and acting, I have a universal vision of things, an international vision. Bigger and broader and beyond. 'Bigger than life' is always on my mind.

I don't want to sound too carried away, but from what I've seen, 'Bingo Long' is going to be a big one. A classic.

I love the Mexican muralists - like Rivera, Orozco - and the music of Walter Benton. They gave you a sense that reality was much more than life.

I loved Marlon Brando: my favorite actor.

I tell my son Corey that the greatest teacher is the teacher who says, 'Don't follow me; follow yourself. Because within you there is that kingdom, that life, that force.'

I tend to approach characters not based on ethnicity but on some unique individual qualities, and I've set my whole life that way. I don't want any sort of limitations imposed on my work. If you truly want to be a creative person, you can't limit yourself.

I think a lot of black filmmakers have done very well.

I was in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on a scholarship. I was - still am - an artist. They were looking for an actor for 'Take a Giant Step,' and a producer liked my look and asked if I could act. I said, 'Yep!' Then I got into acting more or less just to make money for paints and canvases.

I'm always looking for good things to do.

It was a time after 'Lady Sings the Blues' and 'Mahogany' and all those romantic movies: I became this romantic figure on the street in a very special way.

It's in our nature. We need to explore and find out what's going on outside of who we are.

Jazz is very much a part of my life. I work with the Thelonious Monk Institute and do the artwork for their program every year.

My mother's side of the family, they're from Montserrat in the Leeward Islands.

No matter where I go, in this country or outside of this country, there are young people, and I'm always surprised that young people know about me and Colt 45.

Oh, I paint all the time.

Right before 'Brian's Song' there was a period when I was very despondent, broke, depressed; my first marriage was on the rocks. The role of Gale Sayers had been cast with Lou Gossett, and then he hurt himself playing basketball. I was called in to read for the role. I was their last choice, and I knew it.

Sometimes a true original doesn't need to change a thing.

The world moves fast, but change isn't always a good thing when you got it right the first time around.

There's always been a lot of misunderstanding about Lando's character. I used to pick up my daughter from elementary school and get into arguments with little children who would accuse me of betraying Han Solo.

You are always going to have people criticizing, in one way or another, for their own personal reason.

As much as I loved the model of St. Francis, I realized that I couldn't afford to be poor, because unlike St. Francis, I'm not celibate. I was enlightened that God's call to me was not poverty but generosity and simplicity. And I had to go back to the lesson I learned from my parents: that is, simplicity.

I'm stupidly proud of myself.

I hate gold. I'm sort of a sterling-silver guy.

It is up to African leaders to show their will and political courage in order to assure that this new pan-African institution becomes an efficient instrument and not a place for endless discussions.

I've been inspired by Coco Chanel. She broke all the rules of her time when she was designing. She pretty much revolutionized the way that women dressed at the time, and in doing that, she modernized the way they looked because they could move more freely in their clothes.

My father loved people, children and pets.

I'm not a Trump fan. I don't think he should be the nominee.

The revolutionary process by which all books, old and new, in all languages, will soon be available digitally, at practically no cost for storage and delivery, to a radically decentralized world-wide market at the click of a mouse, is irreversible.

American consumers benefit from free trade and investment.

Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20 - 20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.

There's not many good comedies to watch - you know, comedies that make you glad you watched them.

He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

I've always had my ear pierced with a diamond stud. I did it myself when I was 16.

You only have to look at London, where almost half of all primary school children speak English as a second language, to see the challenges we now face as a country. This isn't fair to anyone: how can people build relationships with their neighbours if they can't even speak the same language?

I feel really humbled and really grateful to have the opportunities that I've had over the past couple of years to work with some amazing people. I think, at this point, I just want to put my head down and grind and do honest work.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.

When you leave a beautiful place, you carry it with you wherever you go.

I have a naturally camp sensibility and a camp sense of humour. I love the icons that gay people love.

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.

Wear your heart on your skin in this life.

Every pessimist who ever lived has been buried in an unmarked grave. Tomorrow has always been better than today, and it always will be.