Once I got to be about twenty-five, I got interested in the music of the time. I started smokin' dope, I started drinking, I started slowing down and trying to find myself. I didn't want to work in nightclubs.

I read the script, and I knew it was a good part. It was written for a white actor. That's what I'm up against - I have to try to make roles happen for me that aren't written black.

I never wanted to be a star, I just wanted to get work.

They were very generous with me. Everybody was willing to talk about their particular accident, what they had to deal with and how they got back in touch with their competitors' spirit.

My character had been in the chair for seven years. He had gone through his anger, depression, drug and alcohol abuse. He had gone through everything, now he was up, he was happy, he was filled with his dream.

I think everybody at some point - especially if they've been working their whole lives - should take time out and think about what they've done.

They told me that the hotels had maybe two rooms set up for people with disabilities, but if they got there too late, and didn't get one of these rooms, they couldn't take a shower. The room wasn't hooked up for them, or maybe the sink was too high.

I wanted to make a movie, because the whole life of the movies appealed to me. You work hard for three or four months, then you don't work at all for a couple of months.

Once I got to be about twenty-five, I got interested in the music of the time. I started smokin' dope, I started drinking, I started slowing down and trying to find myself. I didn't want to work in nightclubs.

I don't remember not dancing. When I realized I was alive and these were my parents, and I could walk and talk, I could dance.

It turned out to be exactly that, but more challenging emotionally. I looked at it in a more physical way, having to act in a chair and move around. But it really was more emotionally challenging.

You know the first time I sat in the chair I felt anything but up, it was very emotional for me. I had a chair in my hotel room, a chair at rehearsal, and I was trying to spend as much time as I could in the chair.

I can remember feeling very angry, and saying no! I can do it myself! From that point of view it was very emotional for me to get myself to the point to sit in the chair and be "up".

It would be like the films I've seen where wardens would decide to be in a jail cell for a week, to get a sense of what it would be like to be a prisoner.

As parents, we're human beings, too, but sometimes we're not as understanding as we'd like to be.

I can remember feeling very angry, and saying no! I can do it myself! From that point of view it was very emotional for me to get myself to the point to sit in the chair and be 'up'.

I grew up in the '50s, a tough time for African Americans. I had friends whose fathers would openly say, 'Just bite your tongu;, don't cause any problems.' My father was not like that. Even in the toughest times racially, if somebody disrespected his family, they were in trouble.

I like to do an interview when the other person isn't expecting it. I find it's more spontaneous.

I'm going to tap until I can't: I'll be so old, all I can do is walk out from the wings to stage center. But I'll be there.

I've had times when I've done what seems like a thousand interviews to promote a film that I'm in. I start to think that I'm the best thing that ever happened to the world, talkin' about myself for cryin' out loud. Then I come home, and my wife needs me to help with dinner and empty the garbage, and the kids need help with their homework.

My father has always been my hero.

My roots are on the live performing stage, so while I enjoy making films and the other things that I do, when I get on stage, I feel at home; I'm comfortable.

One of the things about working on stage - actually, about working in show business, that is - is that it's such a collaborative effort. I suppose that everything in life is - every endeavor where people are able to be successful.

When my brother and me got into performing in the late '40s and early '50s, it was a sensational opportunity to learn from our elders. Every show we played had a dancer, a comic, a juggler, a singer, an acrobat. I came to appreciate virtuosity in all forms of the business.

The best entertainment speaks to the human condition in an honest way.

The doctors say he has a 50 50 chance of surviving but theres only a ten percent chance of that.

The world over, give a guy money and it goes to drinking, gambling, and women. When you give a woman money, it goes to feeding, clothing, helping people.

This is going to sound strange, but I really didn't think I would pass 30. I don't know why or whatever, I just didn't. That's a very weird thing to say, I'm sorry. I don't know. Maybe it's because I was drinking so much as a youth.

The beard is here because I got tired of shaving and Grissom, subsequently, got tired of shaving. Grissom, like any other 50-year-old man, is going through a series of mid-life changes. Who knows, he may start drinking.

I prepared for the part by drinking, but I was sober when I was performing.

I'm doing naughty things, I'm drinking too much, I'm going to clubs. It really didn't matter to me, other than the fact that some parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me.

If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer.

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.

Men even contract the dirty, filthy habit of chewing tobacco, and when the habit gets a good hold upon them they are never satisfied except when they have a wad of the stuff in their mouth. So with drinking. It is largely a habit.

I'm talking like 10, 12 years old. Either junior brings Mom and Pop or Mom and Pop bring the kids. I'm talking young here, not a college drinking crowd.

My parents would read those books to me as well but they used to make me starving when I was a kid because they were always eating ham sandwiches with the crusts off and drinking ginger beer.

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water.

I admit I was drinking a Guinness... but I did not swallow.

I wasn't out drinking and abusing my body. I simply loved to go out and dance.

I had a breakthrough, I think my life just became calmer, I gave up drinking. My priorities changed as I had a young daughter. The group didn't want me to record for the Think Tank album... so I took it as a sign to leave.

I love milk so much! I make a point of drinking a glass of milk every day. So now anyone who did those milk ads with the milk mustaches, they're my heroes.

Nowhere in this country should we have laws that permit drinking and driving or drinking in vehicles that are on American highways. This is not rocket science. We know how to prevent this, and 36 states do.

It's like gambling somehow. You go out for a night of drinking and you don't know where your going to end up the next day. It could work out good or it could be disastrous. It's like the throw of the dice.

The obvious issue is providing clean drinking water and sanitation to every single human being on earth at the cost of little more than one year of the Kyoto treaty.

When animators weren't sleeping, they were drinking.

It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse.

I had friends at school, but I was never part of a gang and I dreamed of that sense of belonging to a group. You know, where people would call me 'Em' and shout across the bar, 'Em, what are you drinking?' after the show.

My suggestion is that we should first work to ensure the Third World has clean drinking water and sanitation.