Sidney Poitier Quotes

1. I was not the kind of a principal player that was so in demand that eight or 10 or 12 scripts came per month.  






2. So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one.

3. I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things.


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

5. I'll always be chasing you...Glory.

6. I had two roles for which I compromised.


7. I'm going to quit writing.


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

9. I'm not a library.

10. I had learned something of Miami from people who had visited there, so I knew what to expect.

11. In America, it is difficult to be your own man.


12. As a man, I've been representative of the values I hold dear. And the values I hold dear are carryovers from the lives of my parents.

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

14. I had to satisfy the action fans, the romantic fans, the intellectual fans. It was a terrific burden.

15. In my case, the body of work stands for itself...I think my work has been representative of me as a man.

16. I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was…a human being.

17. Jackie Robinson is a true legend.

18. I sometimes like the pictures photographers take of me.

19. My father was a poor man, very poor in a British colonial possession where class and race were very important.

20. A good deed here, a good deed there, a good thought here, a good comment there, all added up to my career in one way or another.

21. My father was the quintessential husband and dad.

22. I wanted to look at them because I feel, internally, that I am an ordinary person who has had an extraordinary life.




23. My father was very big on marriage.

24. To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.

25. My wife collects knickknacks.





26. But my dad also was a remarkable man, a good person, a principled individual, a man of integrity.

27. Since I couldn't actuate the things that I wanted to do, the only weapon I had was to say no.

28. I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

29. My autobiography was simply the story of my life.

30. There is not racial or ethnic domination of hopelessness. It's everywhere.



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

32. To be compared to Jackie Robinson is an enormous compliment, but I don't think it's necessarily deserved.

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




34. When I set out to become an actor, I had set myself a standard.

35. I couldn't adjust to the racism in Florida.

36. I am the me I choose to be.





37. 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.

38. I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my color or caste.

39. The impact of the black audience is expressing itself. They look to films to be more expressive of their needs, their lives. Hollywood has gotten that message - finally.


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

41. We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists...in the loved one, perfection.

42. So I'm OK with myself, with history, my work, who I am and who I was.




43. I wanted to explore the values that are at work, underpinning my life.

44. I was born two months early, and everyone had given up on me. But my mother insisted on my life.

45. I don't mean to be like some old guy from the olden days who says: "I walked thirty miles to school every morning, so you kids should too." That's a statement born of envy and resentment. What I'm saying is something quite different. What I'm saying is that by having very little, I had it good. Children need a sense of pulling their own weight, of contributing to the family in some way, and some sense of the family's interdependence. They take pride in knowing that they're contributing. They learn responsibility and discipline through meaningful work. The values developed within a family that operates on those principles then extend to the society at large. By not being quite so indulged and "protected" from reality by overflowing abundance, children see the bonds that connect them to others.

46. The journey has been incredible from its beginning.



47. A person doesn't have to change who he is to become better.



48. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.

49. I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

50. I come from a great family. I've seen family life and I know how wonderful, how nurturing, and how wonderful it can be.

51. Okay listen, you think I'm so inconsequential? Then try this on for size. All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value - to you I say, I'm not talking about being AS GOOD as you. I hereby declare myself BETTER than you.



52. An appreciable number of directors have shifted to lower-cost films, allowing them to be satisfied with a more modest return.

53. I've learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger: it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage - self destructive, destroy the world rage - and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.


54. Generally, I tend to despise human behavior rather than human creatures.

55. Forgiveness works two ways, in most instances. People have to forgive themselves too. The powerful have to forgive themselves for their behavior. That should be a sacred process.

56. History passes the final judgment.

57. 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?

58. I cannot be understood in three minutes.

59. As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me. The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.

60. 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.


61. Acting isn't a game of "pretend." It's an exercise in being real.


62. I have always been a learner because I knew nothing.

63. If the image one holds of one's self contains elements that don't square with reality, one is best advised to let go of them, however difficult that may be.

64. I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.




65. (from Sidney Poitier's speech about Widmark at the D. W. Griffith Award for Life Achievement) The generosity of spirit that lights his way will also warm your heart...

66. I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it.

67. I don't very often read novels.

68. I get offered work these days.

69. (re writer/director Richard Brooks) He was both intense and very feeling, very human. He had a wonderful, wonderful sense of other people. He was not particularly enamored of himself. He was the kind off guy who had a sense of fairness, and he employed that sense in his life, and in his work, so that some people were surprised at him, some people deeply loved him, and some people were just put off by him.


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