Sidney Poitier

“Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain. We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?”

“Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson's.”

“I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father's life.”

“I couldn't adjust to the racism in Florida.”

“I was fortunate enough to have been raised to a certain point before I got into the race thing. I had other views of what a human is, so I was never able to see racism as the big question. Racism was horrendous, but there were other aspects to life.”

“Far as I can tell, I still have most of my hair, my gut is not hanging over my belt, and I still have all of my teeth.”

“I had chosen to use my work as a reflection of my values.”

“I was a gift to my mother. She was a remarkable person. God or nature, or whatever those forces are, smiled on her, then passed me the best of her.”

“If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you're not going to get very far. You simply won't.”

“If the screen does not make room for me in the structure of their screenplay, I'll step out. I'll step back. I'd step back. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it.”

“I am not a hugely religious person, but I believe that there is a oneness with everything. And because there is this oneness, it is possible that my mother is the principal reason for my life.”

“I'll always be chasing you... Glory.”

“I don't very often read novels.”

“I have always been a learner because I knew nothing.”

“I knew what it was to be uncomfortable in a movie theater watching unfolding on the screen images of myself - not me, but black people - that were uncomfortable.”

“But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots.”

“So it's been kind of a long road, but it was a good journey altogether.”

“The journey has been incredible from its beginning.”

“I cannot be understood in three minutes.”

“My father was the quintessential husband and dad.”