Pam Grier quotes:

I was able to be distant by portraying another person, another character, if you will, and I found myself not stuttering and not having anxiety attacks when I was portraying another soul, another being, and I found comfort in that. I think many actors do, playing someone other than themselves.

I like serious films, the moneymaking blockbusters that don't make any kind of sense and John Carpenter films.

That's what he was saying, the civil rights movement - judge me for my character, not how black my skin is, not how yellow my skin is, how short I am, how tall or fat or thin; It's by my character.

Does a black person make them an African American? No. There are Hispanics that are very, very dark skinned so the word has lost its meaning, it's not a very concise or proper word to use even today and it wasn't then.

My people were homesteading in Colorado before Emancipation.

It's always fun to put on bell bottoms and have your butt hanging out and hip huggers.

It makes me forget that I'm not going to be a major star and lead female in films whether it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five or in the future.

Oh, there's going to be debate because you're dealing with the Bible and religion is supposed to be separate from state and that to me is already a conflict before it even hits the gay issue.

I'm an Air force Brat and I've lived all over the world and this country and there were people in my community who were gay - nurses, hairdressers, designers - people who just had a different way about themselves.

I thought I would be Sheena of the Jungle as a little girl.

Struggle and survival, losing and winning, doesn't matter. It's entering the race that counts. You enter, you can win, you can lose .... but it's all about entering the race.

I love working with a lot of different films and a lot of different people.

I'm a big child at heart. I think it's important to stay that way and not lose the wonder of life.

The first movie that I saw was Godzilla and I loved it.

I grew up in a family where we weren't allowed to talk about beauty or to put any emphasis on physical appearance.

Me, sexy? I'm just plain ol' beans and rice.

My mother really wanted me to be in possibly a beauty pageant, not only for if I could win, but it helped improve my self-image because of trauma in my childhood and other issues.

I do a movie once every four years and they call it a comeback.

Each time you do a film you gain a lot of experience and build a visual resume where people get to know who you are.

You can be on top of everything, and the next minute, you're going to be on the bottom.

Driving a cab is not really a nurturing type of relationship. You take people and they tip you, they may not tip you, you don't know their names, they don't care about you, you don't care about them.

There are just certain realities about our world and I just happen to be creative within it.

Women are allowed more freedoms and we're fighting for more freedoms, we're experiencing more freedoms won.

I wanted to be in film. I wanted to be a film student, possibly be a director or cinematographer, not an actor. That was my goal. I didn't believe I had the physical beauty that I'd seen projected and advertised in movies, in theater. It just wasn't for me.

I don't believe that I should just do A-movies, I just do the work as an artist.

My family was very, very receptive to all; all races, religions.

Anything involving the camera, you're passionate about. Because there's no movies without it.

As I get older, it's a time to enjoy life.

At the beginning, my ambition was never to break down doors. It was just to earn tuition for myself and work in an industry where women hadn't been allowed or invited. That's all I wanted to do, not thinking that I would make waves, change minds, excite people, incite people, turn on people, repulse people.

But I just loved looking at the clothes of the '70s.

Coming from the '50s, things were very violent.

Coming from the '50s, things were very violent. We were still being lynched. If I drove down through the South with my mother, I might not make it through one state without being bullied or harassed. I feel like unless you've been black for a week, you don't know.

Everyone else can do violence. You know, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, they can all do shoot-'em-ups. Arnold Schwarzenegger can kill 10 people in one minute, and they don't call it "white exploitation." They win awards and get into all the magazines. But if black people do it, suddenly it's different than if a white person does it. People respond differently because people come from different places.

I ask you, how would you like your mom, your wife, your daughter to spend $100,000 to go to Harvard or some state school, and go out into the workplace, and you know she's great, and men are getting paid $200 per week more than her? Would that piss you off? What if you lost your job and you stay home crippled while she goes out, and she thinks she's going to get a good job, but someone male with the same level of experience and the same level of education gets paid more than her? You're going to get pissed. Until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes, I don't want to hear it.

I believe that if we have to pay 100 percent for our college tuition, and then we get into the workplace, and we're only given 70 percent of our counterparts' salaries, then we shouldn't have to pay but 70 percent of our college tuition. Maybe that'll stop the bullshit.

I came from poverty and was part of those circumstances.

I consider myself conscious of how we're treated, and sometimes I can be a feminist.

I don't know how I did it, but I worked 7 days a week.

I don't think I can break down any doors, but I'm thinking, "Maybe I can be a cameraman, because I love the cameras." And the cameraman would show me how to thread the film, how to repair it, the lenses. That's when you become, like, goony goo-goo about it. You breathe and eat camera, and all of a sudden, you don't want anything else in the world. You finally know, "This is my calling." When you're passionate about something, it doesn't become work. It's art and it's fun. It's arduous, it's sweaty.

I don't want to be an actress, because I think that they have to be really pretty, and I'm not.

I felt beauty was a magnet for abuse, and I had suffered greatly for it.

I like to do all kinds of films.

I never thought I was pretty. I couldn't even put on eyelashes or makeup.

I really hate to see abusive behavior being passed on from generation to generation to generation, when we have access to health and counseling.

I tell actresses, "If you're too tall, if you're too fat, you're not going to work. I don't care how talented you are." It's a business, and sex sells.

I think people will have great conversations about religions, women's sexuality, gender issues and gay issues.

I want to direct and work with the youngins and the fabulous actors of today.

I was a child of the women's movement. Everything I had learned was from my mother and my grandmother, who both had a very pioneering spirit. They had to, because they had to change flat tires and paint the house - because, you know, the men didn't come home from the war or whatever else, so women had to do these things.

I was kind of a bouncy kid. I used to roller-skate into the sides of cars.

I will not be on this planet. I may come back in another form, and you know, I'll come back as a white man.

If you're stupid and you're arrogant, you're going to get hurt.

I'm in film school, so I really have to sock away my money for school, tuition, and so on, and I really don't have time.

I'm just going to try to do the best work at whatever I'm going to be, and I don't think I'm going to be an actress.

I'm not a total feminist, but I believe in rights for females.

I'm still trying to do films about black women.

It's the best honor when someone wants to use as their professional title the name of a character that you portrayed.

I've never considered myself to be beautiful, and I still don't.

Let's start working towards wellness, a healing in our community, a healing in relationships, so male and female can finally sit down and understand that that young boy or young girl saw behavior exhibited by their parents that was negative and abusive and they're going to pass it on.

My grandfather was the first feminist in my life. He taught me if a woman can do something, a man will respect her.

My passion is to tell stories that reflect humanity.

Our culture is revered and it inspires people all around the globe.

Out of necessity comes genius.

Sex, action, special effects, and violence sell.

Some day I want to play a grandmother. And a foxy one at that!

Sometimes I'm a little Republican, sometimes I'm a little Democrat.

Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm not angry.

Thats what I crave that diversity.

The African-American community is not monolithic. It's liberal and conservative.

We have to have films about action and violence and special effects. That's the sad part, but you know what? It's not me doing it.

Well, thank you and that's for them, but for me, I want to look back at a body of work where when you do the research and you explore the psyche of a character, where she's been, where she is and where she's going.

When you are an actor, you bring a tool in your craft but you are not that person.

When you come from an environment that's military, and they don't stress that topic of aesthetics or beauty pageants and makeup, there are a lot of things you just don't have that city girls have. Or the country girl who goes to movies and dreams of going to Hollywood as an actress.

Women were victims. Their husbands could beat them up when they wanted to. They couldn't work. They could be maimed and killed by their husbands.

Yes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary. You'll have Julia Roberts, you'll have Robert Redford, you'll have Russell Crowe doing those films, because if they're going to cost $90 million, they're going to make that movie for a public that's very large and mainstream. They're not going to make it for three or four million black people.

You can get hurt at any time.

You never know how people are going to respond.

And as I reinvent myself and I'm constantly curious about everything, I can't wait to see what's around the corner in newfound art and entertainment and exploration.