Denzel Washington quotes:

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  • When I was a child I thought I saw an angel. It had wings and kinda looked like my sister. I opened the door so some light could come into the room, and it sort of faded away. My mother said it was probably my Guardian Angel.

  • Michelle Pfeiffer hasn't been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn't like what a woman her age is offered. That's a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn't work the other way around.

  • I had a lot of success from the start. I never really was tested for long periods of time. I got my first professional job while I was a senior in college. I signed with the William Morris Agency before I graduated.

  • Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn't matter how good you are.

  • I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.

  • If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don't just be mad at him or her.

  • I've worked in a factory. I was a garbage man. I worked in a post office. It's not that long ago. I like to think that I'm just a regular guy.

  • If I am a cup maker, I'm interested in making the best cup I possibly can. My effort goes into that cup, not what people think about it.

  • When people protest and are upset with a movie, it becomes a big hit. They hated Passion of The Christ, it worked out pretty well for the box office. So let's get that going.

  • My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don't need another plaque.

  • Sometimes when you're the good guy, you're sort of trapped. "Oh, he can't say that." And even when you're playing a real person like a Steven Biko, you're sort of stuck within those confines. So yeah, bad guys do have more fun.

  • I'm very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That's my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it's not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

  • Denzel Washington: I like the collaboration, I like seeing people do well, so I really plan to direct the rest of my days.

  • Growing up I didn't watch movies.

  • I still have my unemployment books and I remember when I worked for the sanitation department and the post office.

  • Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

  • I don't concern myself with award. I'd been to the party enough times to know it really didn't matter.

  • I wasn't allowed to go to movies when I was kid; my father was a minister. 101 Dalmatians and King of Kings, that was the extent of it.

  • A part of me still says, 'Maybe, Denzel, you're supposed to preach. Maybe you're still compromising.' I've had an opportunity to play great men and, through their words, to preach. I take what talent I've been given seriously, and I want to use it for good.

  • I'd be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I'd been given. I'd be more frightened by procrastination and laziness.

  • I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you're prepared for it.

  • My ultimate life dream project is my kids. My family.

  • The time to worrying about flying is when you're on the ground. When you're up in the air, it's too late. No point in worrying about it then.

  • I think we're fascinated by gangsters and that whole lifestyle and crossing the line. We get sort of stuck in our normal lives, if you will, and you want to be bigger than life and I think people somehow live through these sorts of characters.

  • I never really had the classic struggle. I had faith.

  • Man gives you the award but God gives you the reward.

  • I and haven't been unemployed for 20 years. I'm an exception to the rule.

  • When I did A Soldier's Story, I was very young and green and thought I knew everything-now I know I know everything!

  • Where I think the most work needs to be done is behind the camera, not in front of it.

  • It's simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they're done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it's what they see. That's where my head is at.

  • For whatever reason, God has blessed me with the ability, put me in a position to make these leaps and bounds. I'm fulfilling my part of the bargain, which is to give back and be a positive influence on others.

  • Put God first in everything you do.

  • I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.

  • I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me - spiritually and financially.

  • I love research and being educated. It's a great job being able to step into all kinds of professions and into other people's shoes.

  • The secret to a happy marriage? Do whatever your wife tells you. 'Yes, dear.' And breathe.

  • I've always felt protected. That's the God's honest truth.

  • In Los Angeles, everyone is a star.

  • My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back.

  • Money doesn't buy happiness. Some people say it's a heck of a down payment, though.

  • You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That's a part of it.

  • A film is just like a muffin. You make it. You put it on the table. One person might say, Oh, I don't like it. One might say it's the best muffin ever made. One might say it's an awful muffin. It's hard for me to say. It's for me to make the muffin.

  • Raising the standard of the work, not complaining about somebody not voting.

  • My father was a minister for 50 years (with) Pentecostal Church of God in Christ. We prayed about everything, every day, then he always said, "Amen. God is love." I thought God is love was one word. Like "Godislove." And it took me a long time to learn what that really meant.

  • Put God first in everything you do ... Everything that I have is by the grace of God, understand that. It's a gift ... I didn't always stick with Him, but He stuck with me.

  • Some said America took a step forward electing a black president. In light of the unconstitutiona l expansion of powers, lack of transparency and fueling the fires of unrest that clearly hasn't been the case. Vote based on merits, not to fill a racial quota.

  • Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

  • I think a role model is a mentor - someone you see on a daily basis, and you learn from them.

  • I work hard for the audience. It's entertainment. I don't need validation.

  • I'm a parent. I think we're responsible for the problems that young people have. I believe that. I don't blame them for any of it. I blame us for what we haven't done as mothers and fathers, not sticking together as a unit.

  • Fall forward. Here's what I mean: Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career - the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't either - because number 1,001 was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

  • The lessons I learned in Sunday School have kept me on track

  • Cursed be the ground for our sake. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for us. For out of the ground we were taken, for the dust we are and to the dust we shall return.

  • The poorest people are the sweetest people.

  • You'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. ... Now, I've been blessed to make hundreds of millions of dollars in my life. I can't take it with me, and neither can you. It's not how much you have but what you do with what you have,

  • You will never see a U-Haul behind a hearse,

  • If you don't trust the pilot, don't go.

  • I walk by faith, not by sight.

  • If you take the time and put in the effort to write your own material and absolutely refuse to be denied the right to make your film it is difficult whatever colour you are.

  • You have to grab moments when they happen. I like to improvise and ad lib.

  • I'm not a film buff. I don't watch a lot of movies.

  • Dakota Fanning is a child, but she is a wonderful actor. I don't know what a child actor is. She's an actor who's a child.

  • My faith helps me understand that circumstances don't dictate my happiness, my inner peace.

  • I played Othello, but I didn't sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn't do me any good.

  • I'm not in the loop; I don't know any actors, really, just the ones I work with.

  • Meryl and Katharine Hepburn are probably the two greatest actresses of this and the last century.

  • In any profession it gets to be a grind.

  • My role 14 years ago in Richard III - that was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it - they have all the fun!

  • I've worked with children all my life.

  • Goals on the road to achievement cannot be achieved without discipline and consistency.

  • Why do we close our eyes when we pray, cry, kiss, or dream? Because the most beautiful things in life are not seen but felt by the heart.

  • At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. Its about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It about what you've given back" (23).

  • Don't aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.

  • Be careful what you ask for because when you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud as well.

  • Do what you have to do, to do what you want to do.

  • The chances you take, the people you meet, the people you love, the faith that you have. That's what's going to define you.

  • A man once told me that you step out of your door in the morning, and you are already in trouble. The only question is are you on top of that trouble or not?

  • Just stick with your kids. There's no set of rules on how to be a parent. No handbook. Just hang around your kids and ask them a lot of questions. You have to stay involved in your children's lives and monitor everything they're doing whether they like it or not. You're not in the job of making them like it. You're there to protect them in a world that can be troubling.

  • Success? I don't know what that word means. I'm happy. But success, that goes back to what in somebody's eyes success means. For me, success is inner peace. That's a good day for me.

  • To protect the sheep, you gotta catch the wolf. And it takes a wolf to catch a wolf, you understand?

  • Got to be who you are in this world, no matter what.

  • It's not easy for me to admit that I've been standing in the same place for 18 years.

  • The greatest lesson I've learned in life is "Who knows what's good or bad?" Things come along that you really want, and they turn out to be the worst thing in the world. And some of the worst tragedies that you can conceive turn out to be the best things, the exact medicine you need in that moment.

  • When we shot "Cry Freedom," I wasn't even allowed in South Africa. They told me I could come but I wasn't going to leave. I had heavy death threats at that time. So we shot in Zimbabwe.In 1995, I had the privilege and the honor to meet Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela the same day: I had breakfast with Desmond Tutu and lunch with Nelson Mandela. Then I had the good fortune to have Mr. Mandela actually come to my house in California.here's been a tremendous amount of change.

  • True desire in the heart for anything good is God's proof to you sent beforehand to indicate that it's yours already,

  • I pray that you all put your shoes way under the bed at night so that you gotta get on your knees in the morning to find them. And while you're down there thank God for grace and mercy and understanding. We all fall short of the glory, we all got plenty,

  • I think that we all at some point are in search of something - a higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life. I know I was, especially at even my son's age in my 20s, and dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or if nothing else, figure myself out.

  • Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

  • If you don't fail, you're not even trying.

  • [Saniyya Sidney] was very serious about her work and her craft, and she wanted to be good, and she wanted to work on it. So I said, "Ok." It was as simple as that. She was just right. She just has it.

  • Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.

  • So you never know who you touch. You never know how or when you'll have an impact, or how important your example can be to someone else" (20).

  • I believe in God. I don't fear man, I fear God.

  • Do what you gotta do so you can do what you wanna do.

  • There's a book called "The Sociopath Next Door." I thought most sociopaths were violent. In fact, they aren't. But almost all sociopaths want to win, no matter what.

  • You canâ??t break me because you didnâ??t make me.

  • I even asked [Saniyya Sidney] why she wanted to be an actor and she said, "I'm serious about this. These other little kids they want to play, and I don't have time for that."

  • I've always seen it to be a privilege to make movies. It's a really expensive, creative medium.

  • What we did [shooting "Fences"] was we got young students from Carnegie Mellon, the acting and theater students, and we had them as our understudies. I told them, "You have to be off book and be ready. If Viola [Davis] has to leave you have to jump in."

  • The Bible says "faith without works is nothing" so destiny is great, fate is great, faith is great - but you still have to work at it. I don't just sit at home and wait for it all to unfold.

  • Dreams without goals, are just dreams and they ultimately fuel disappointment.

  • I had the kid [on "Fences" ] who understudied me so I could stand back and think about shots so he had to learn the blocking and everything. I'd come in early sometimes, and they 'd be in there rehearsing and working on their stuff. I didn't want them to feel like, "Oh these are people who can't be touched." We're all working actors; we're all trying to get better.

  • [Rose from "Fences"] couldn't just jump out there. Not just because of economic reasons but because how she was looked at in society at the time. There were a lot of factors that made you stay I guess.

  • There's always got to be room for what you might call benign corruption. Nobody blames a man who steals food to feed his starving children, but on the other hand, somebody who picks up a badge and takes an oath to serve and protect; we do expect a certain level of essential honesty.

  • One good thing about acting in film is that it's good therapy.

  • I'm not a big Hollywood star. I'm an actor. I'm called a star. That's not what I am. First of all I'm a human being; my profession is acting. People give you titles. They say you're an up and coming star, then they say you're a star, then they say you're a washed-up star. So I don't get caught up in what I'm called. My job, my profession, is acting.

  • Thank God in advance for what's already yours.

  • There are films that I don't like, and then someone will come up to me and say it's their favorite movie. The movies belong to the people. You make them and you put them out. For me, I love the process of making films. For me, my favorite film is always my next one.

  • We all are doing the best we can. I would like to say that I'm a walking poster board for feminism and women's liberation, but there are things that I do in my life that deeply, deeply fall short of being a statement for being a strong woman. I am flawed as much as anyone else.

  • As an actor in the theater you're taught that you never play a bad guy. You have to love who you are. You can't say, "Oh, I'm a bad guy." How do you play that?

  • Acting is like music and you improvise. It's like jazz, there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's not a plan. You practice to music and you just play it.

  • I was first introduced to August Wilson in the 80s when Charles Dutton did Ma Rainey and James Earl Jones and Courtney Vance did Fences. I've long considered August Wilson to be one of the five greatest playwrights in American history.

  • When you make a movie it's always interesting, because you end up in places you never would as a normal visitor or tourist.

  • I'm older and wiser. So and now having segued into filmmaking I'm looking at [Ridley Scott ] and what he does in an entirely different way and I have respect for what he does and how he composes shots. So that was what was completely fascinating.

  • I'm selfish, I think. I think an artist has to be. I'm not worried about what people think. I play the parts that I find interesting. It'd bother me more to be just pigeonholed into doing what people think is ethical or that's boring to me. I don't pick parts with that in mind, I just find interesting stories. If it's interesting to me, then I do it.

  • Revenge is a meal best served cold.

  • I'm not interested in being a celebrity; I'm interested in being a better actor and a better director.

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