What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.

I've been a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNICEF and the UNICEF family for more than twelve years.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

I'm a child of the Civil Rights Movement.

I've always been able to make choices that don't embarrass me.

I try to find hope in struggle and resistance in small places as much as I can.

I was able to do To Sleep with Anger, a very powerful film about African Americans, their spirituality, and the things that happened within a small community and a family.

One of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country.

New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages?

In 1967, the students at San Francisco State invited the poet Amiri Baraka to the campus for a semester. He attracted other influential black writers such as Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver. What emerged was something we called the community communications program. That's how I got involved; I got involved in a little play.

If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.

But I think it's very key that there's a plan for Haiti. And we have to begin to - as progressives and people who are concerned about Haiti and have been concerned about Haiti, we have to begin to build some sort of consensus, a movement around the Haiti that the Haitians envision.

Well I don't know because I don't have a real relationship with the industry.

Every day of my life I walk with the idea that I am black, no matter how successful I am. And our success is tempered by that; you're successful in this way given the fact you are black, and most blacks don't get to that point.

This country has always been run by elite, and it's an elitist democracy. And that's not a radical concept. It's elitist democracy. When people talk about democracy, they don't talk - really talk about participatory democracy, until the point that we get us at Election Day.

The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist.

What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.

Every day of my life I walk with the idea I am black no matter how successful I am.

You know, we do not want the militarization of Haiti. We do not see a Haitian as a protectorate where it relinquishes its own sovereignty.

It's also important for those who promote those issues within the white community - the somewhat privileged community - to talk about issues affecting people of color.

If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.

I'm not so vain as to believe that my involvement changes anything whatsoever.

Freedom Summer, the massive voter education project in Mississippi, was 1964. I graduated from high school in 1965. So becoming active was almost a rite of passage.

If we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children's mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives.

We have to be that wedge that drives the question and asks the hard questions.

I was able to do The Saint of Fort Washington, on the relationship between two homeless men.

Some of these things I saw in foreign films - African films, Cuban films - long before I decided to really go on this course as an actor. I started to think about what values I saw in those films that I wanted to bring to my projects.

But rarely have I made choices that made me feel I was really compromising what I believe.

I never thought about being an actor.

When you've moved past a point where you're just scrambling for jobs, you think about the things that you want to do. And the things that you want to do are governed by what you've seen, what you choose to embrace.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

I wouldn't change Buffy for anything and I wouldn't change the course in which she has evolved but it is nice to be able to do something that is a little different.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

In their search for quality, people seem to be looking for permanency in a time of change.

The game has kept faith with the public, maintaining its old admission price for nearly thirty years while other forms of entertainment have doubled and tripled in price. And it will probably never change.

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

But the real focus should be on people who are buying today because the base is so big it will take a long time for any change materialize on an overall basis.