I was a product of Andy Warhol’s Factory. All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that.
My mom and dad did something special when they made me.
Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.
I did a film in Nairobi, Kenya called ‘The Last Elephant,’ with John Lithgow, Isabella Rosallini, and James Earl Jones. So I was in seventh heaven, alright? About a year later I get a call from my agent and he says they want to see you for this project called Candyman. I thought he was joking so I hung up.
India did not innovate with the ATMs. But when we brought ATMs into India and made the machines talk in 15 regional languages to the people in rural India, we got millions of transactions on the ATM.
Nobody in history has won all the titles I’ve won and the cruiserweight title. I’d be the only man in history. That’s when you die and go to Heaven, and God can look at you and know you did everything with the gifts he gave you.
I liked ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs,’ which I did with Neil Simon. I kind of was playing him, as Eugene Morris Jerome, and I played that a few times at the very beginning of my career.
Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.
Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.
NBC had a show called ‘The Toughest Bouncer in America’ that I did. But I told them I didn’t like that term, ‘bouncer.’ To me, it’s offensive. A bouncer likes to get physical, likes to put his hands on people.
I did not just fall in love. I made a parachute jump.
I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I’d draw a big ram’s head, really messy. I’d never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.
I worked for George Bush. I’m proud to have worked for him. I think that a lot of the most controversial things we did, that people didn’t like and – and criticized us for, things like the terror surveillance program or the enhanced interrogation techniques, were things that allowed us to save lives.
Did Superman really want to save the world, or did he just feel like he had to? Would he much rather be a farmer? Maybe. Would he much rather be hanging out with his dad and his mom and his dog? Probably.
Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.
I landed the role of Bravo 5, the only female fighter pilot in ‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.’ I did my bit and fired my guns, but I haven’t a notion of which side I was on or who I was firing the guns at.
My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.
The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony.
I did ‘Eubie!’ on Broadway with the Hines brothers, ‘Comin’ Uptown’ with Gregory Hines, and then ‘Hairspray.’
I did not, thank the Lord, have to have a hysterectomy.
I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.
I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Ask Bill Clinton about Yasir Arafat. Clinton and Barak did everything they could in 2000 at Camp David. Arafat walked away from it.
I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did.
In the ‘Garnethill’ trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O’Donnell’s dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they’re middle-class – they’re just working class because they speak with accents.
I did a picture 40 years ago with Carroll O’Connor and Telly Savalas, God rest their souls, and Clint Eastwood, called ‘Kelly’s Heroes,’ which we filmed in Yugoslavia for six months.
God spoke to me and called me to His Service. What form this service was to take the voice did not say.
The most terrifying moment in my life was October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I did not know all the facts – we have learned only recently how close we were to war – but I knew enough to make me tremble.
Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good.
We are Punjabis from Amritsar, though I was born and brought up in Mumbai and did my Bachelors in Mass Media, specializing in advertising and marketing.
I did a year at Columbia, and I just kind of floundered. Maybe it wasn’t the right place for me.
I grew up with plenty of smart people. They would beat me at chess; they could solve brain teasers before I could, but then they would struggle in algebra. These were incredibly smart people who simply did not have the foundation in math that I had.
I did not come into contact with any Muslim before I embraced Islam. I read the Qur’an first and realized no person is perfect, Islam is perfect, and if we imitate the conduct of the Holy Prophet… we will be successful.
I guess I thought I was Elvis Presley but I’ll tell ya something. All Elvis did was stand on a stage and play a guitar. He never fell off on that pavement at no 80 mph.
When I look back at some of the Chicks stuff, it’s the early stuff we did where we kind of giggle and go, ‘You know what? Those were the good old days.’
Barack Obama did tell me that I was one of Michelle Obama’s favorite actors.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint, and heard great argument about it and about: but evermore came out by the same door as in I went.
A lot of black guys always ask me, ‘Did Larry Bird really play that good?’ I said, ‘Larry Bird is so good it’s frightening.’
When fathers come home after a tough day at work, they should come home to serve, like my father did, teaching lessons around the dinner table and leading the family in worship and prayer.
Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?
Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions.
Life is too short to be scared and not take risks. I’d rather be the person that’s like, ‘I messed up,’ than, ‘I wish I did that.’
We didn’t take Charlize Theron seriously until she did ‘Monster’ and became physically ugly. I would love to see women be able to be powerful, complex, smart, opinionated and taken seriously, even if they are beautiful.
I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer’s body, we as audience must see ourselves, not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.
I want to shake things up like ‘Bloom County’ did.
I think the first photograph I did was a ballplayer. It was a way of showing action or something.
Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don’t believe me when I tell them. That’s how I saw myself, in comedy.
What I did when I identified Mike Webster’s thing, I showed it to other doctors. We all agreed that this was something new, but we had to give it a name. This was not dementia pugilistica. Maybe we could have called it dementia footballitica!
You raise taxes during an economic crisis time, as we did in – back in the time of Herbert Hoover, you send the country into a depression.
I did a movie called ‘Quicksand No Escape’ with Donald Sutherland and Tim Matheson. I think I was maybe 5. I was really little. Yeah, it was fun. And actually, Felicity Huffman played my mom.
Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!
My parents are very hard working people who did everything they could for their children. I have two brothers and they worked dog hard to give us an education and provide us with the most comfortable life possible. My dad provided for his family daily. So, yes, that is definitely in my DNA.
I decided long ago never to walk in anyone’s shadow; if I fail, or if I succeed at least I did as I believe.
