James Avery

“Writing is such a singular and lonely occupation. And it's interesting; all of the work that you create is so singular.”

“The name of the show was 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' not 'Philip and Viv of Bel-Air.' If you didn't want to walk away from the best job in the world over a petty issue, you accepted the way it was.”

“There's a specificity of language that's required in Shakespeare that most drama students in England deal with - a specificity of language that is somehow not as clear in a lot of American schools.”

“Doing Shakespeare certainly makes you a better actor.”

“You can either be a movie star or an actor. I'm an actor.”

“Monetary success is not success. Career success is not success. Life, someone that loves you, giving to others, doing something that makes you feel complete and full. That is success. And it isn't dependent on anyone else.”

“You are only an actor if you absolutely love it and can not do anything else. Starving for your art is great in your 20s, but it's not so great at 35. It has to be absolute love. You can't worry about being a movie star or anything else. Just love. That's it.”

“What you find in the theatre is that if you're good, no matter what color you are, the audience will buy that - whoever you are.”

“When you graduate and come out with a degree in drama, that doesn't mean you're skilled and you're a professional.”

“I did 'Othello' at the Oregon Shakes - I was at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two and a half years. That's where my training is.”

“See, the thing that bothers me with young actors, young actors of color specifically, is that they see movies and television, and they figure that's all it is to it. They have no respect for the craft. They want to be, you know, movie stars or whatever. And I worry that we're losing a certain quality, you know?”

“I don't understand this whole Twitter, Facebook stuff. I don't get it. Make a phone call. Talk to somebody.”

“There are too many African-Americans with too much money for us to have to go to anybody else for anything in terms of schools, in terms of scholarships, in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of moving us along as a group to that place where we should be as a people.”

“On one show before a live audience, I had to look out the door and call for Will Smith to come in. The audience couldn't see him, but there he was with his naked butt staring me in the face. I didn't normally hang out with twenty-something practical jokers, so sometimes he was a little much.”

“I wanted to leave home, and I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do or what would happen. That's youth, though. Being fixated on things. I was fixated on being a writer.”