Words matter. These are the best Louis Gossett, Jr. Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I grew up with all my cousins. The men worked, and the older women raised us – my mother, my aunt, my grandmother. My great-grandmother was the matriarch, and sometimes there were 30 of us.
The worst resentment that anybody can have is one you feel justified to keep.
‘Avatar’ was gorgeous. There are good stories in there, but when used in other movies they’re similar to those violent video games. Characters using deadly weapons. The children follow these movies.
The Lord may not come when you want Him, but he’s always going to be there on time.
I’m cancer-free. And I’m on antioxidants and acupuncture and a different diet. And I have a different outlook on life. I don’t have resentment any more. It’s wonderful.
The two lines from ‘Roots’ that stick out to me are, ‘You no more in Africa. You in America now,’ and what I said after Kunta escaped: ‘What is it like to be free, Kunta? It must be something.’
It’s presumptuous for us to think we are the only beings in the cosmos.
Some Marine units actually use ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ in their training programs.
I was at Woodstock. In the mud.
When I’m offered a role, I look at what I think I can do with it. I look to see if I can project myself into it.
I believe the gift of acting is a gift from God, my oath to God, and I want to make sure on a daily basis that it is honed and deeply spiritual… I want to believe that the audience believes that my acting comes from this special place.
Working on the ABC movie ‘Don’t Look Back: The Story of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige,” which we filmed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was a special pleasure, particularly because I’d played baseball in high school.
I didn’t know anything about acting, I didn’t know anything about theater, but I was just an exceptional student at high school. I wanted to play ball; I’m going after a basketball scholarship and be a doctor. I got injured and my marks began to drop.
My father’s best friend, Georgie Terra, was an Italian guy. The children and the cousins and nieces and nephews were children of the Mafia. Those were the children he grew up with. If you want to go to a safe neighborhood, go to where the Mafia is.
I was president of the schools in junior high and high school, got a scholarship to New York University, played a little basketball, and was a celebrity.
I had an Oscar, an Emmy, and yet I had this big hole in my soul.
Never made a million dollars from any of my 78 movies. People thought I had this fortune, which I never had.
When we look at each other, we’re the same family. You don’t have to see black or Latino – we’re one family. That’s America.
One of my best friends while shooting ‘Roots’ was Vic Morrow, the guy that whips Kunta.
Sometimes I believe that the reason I have been able to do such exemplary work on the screen is because this is the only place I can be free, neither censured nor judged.
We need to do whatever it takes to get our children together and pay attention to them, because that’s our future. What’s in the hearts and minds of our children is what’s in our future.
You have a bout with death, things that touch your mortality, when that happens, all that bling-bling gets thrown away because all you’ve got is you and God.
I was always told that I’d have to do a movie with a white guy in order to get the money. That’s the way it was. That made me feel that I should have chosen some other profession, so I could have gotten my just deserts.
One family, one nation, indivisible. That mentality is essential for our salvation.
When ’12 Years a Slave’ got that much attention, everyone started to copy that. That story has to be told, but there are a lot more stories to be told than slavery.
After the Academy Award, well, I was left with a lot of time on my hands. I thought I’d get a lot of offers – and they didn’t come.
One of the most fascinating projects I worked on right after ‘Officer’ was ‘Sadat,’ a role for which Anwar Sadat’s widow, Jehan, personally chose me. Although this TV miniseries won me nominations for the Golden Globe and an Emmy, strangely, it was boycotted in the Middle East.
I am so grateful that the public has given me this gift. They look at me as a person – not as a race or a color. The word for it is freedom – to be accepted as me.
I think more important than law is the hearts of people.
My father was adopted. He grew up in the Italian household.
