QUOTES by Forest Whitaker
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I see a deep connection between peace and change: peace always starts from within, for communities and people alike. The same is true of change: real change starts from within.
Quote by -Forest Whitaker
I try to support stories that enable us to see the difficulties in our society and the challenges we face, which is why I've also produced documentaries like 'Brick City' and 'Serving Life.'
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I think that cinema and the arts are central in our lives because we grow up and learn about the world through our exposure to stories. Parents use them as a tool to teach their children fundamental truths and values, much as adults can view them to gain exposure to cultures and individuals that they'd never be able to view in their own lives.
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Many of the wars we see around the world start as domestic conflicts that are fueled by external forces and powers. My view is that we can help peace if we help communities transform from the inside, on their own terms.
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I was in middle school right around the time the Bloods and the Crips started taking root in Compton and a lot of the other neighborhoods around me. I saw way too many of my peers - smart, kind, good kids - who got drawn into gangs and violence, and their futures were going to be forever scarred by that.
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In some sense, when you take a child soldier out of an armed group, you've taken away the identity he or she has had for years, and you can't assume life is just going to return to normal.
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It rests in the hands of the common person as well as those with the power to shape humanity's course toward a world where every child, woman and man's most basic needs are met.
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Our leaders must hear us speaking on behalf of our brothers and sisters in South Sudan. If the moral duty to save lives and work toward peace is not compelling enough to drive decision-makers, we must remind them that we care and will hold them accountable.
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Directing is more comfortable for me because, as an actor, there's always something inherently false. Because I'm not that person.
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In high school, I did some musicals, but I never took acting until college. I was studying opera, classical voice, and a speech teacher asked me to audition for this play, and I got the lead.
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I go back and forth between indie and studio because I feel like it, not because I feel obligated to do one or the other.
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I try to be like a forest, revitalizing and constantly growing... Kids would tease me, calling me 'Little Bush.' But... I thought being called Forest helped me find my identity.
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We're supposed to be an example of freedom, and if we are doing things that are injustice to people, then what is our statement?
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I want to get better as an actor, to keep trying to work harder, trying to discover something different. In some ways, it's a pretty frightening experience. But normally, I do tend to walk against fear and hope that I'll be able to survive.
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Look - I'm an African-American. I'm black. But I'm just looking at the character and trying to find his soul, his energy. If you can wipe away the blanket of skin and flesh that people tend to see, and look inside for the essence of the soul, then that's the work I'm doing. That's the work I always do.
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I want a director who can let me feel that he's listening and watching and that he's got me covered. That security is really important for me because sometimes you go into a vulnerable space, and you want to be able to look to somebody because you get insecure: 'Did I do that right?'
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Fame allows you a lot of opportunities to experience new things and connect with people. But on the other hand, people's perceptions of you can limit the scope of your relationships with them. You walk both lines.
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I was a curious child. I'd debate with anyone who came to the door - people from the Islamic community... Jehovah's Witnesses... anyone.
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I'd been reading Eastern philosophy since I was a kid. And I meditated. I did it on a daily basis. It's the one thing I do with any consistency. Meditation gives you a different kind of mindset. It's very powerful.
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I put down the camera long ago, you know? I was here in London, aged 19, and I was obsessed with my camera, shooting everything I could. Then someone stole it. It helped me to see things for the first time.
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It's abhorrent to me that somebody is just evil, and you can't explain it.
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I fell through a stage once. I was doing a truly African dance, and all of a sudden, I hit the ground with my foot and went straight through the stage. I guess they didn't have much money, so the floor was kind of rotting.
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I've been fortunate, I guess: I've gotten to play a lot of very diverse roles for quite a long time. But in the beginning, I was thinking, 'I'm not gonna do certain characters. I will be willing to say no and live on a couch.' And I was really happy.
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On the whole, I now see my work as being an expression of my spiritual life and, because I look at it that way, I have a different centre. I go through the stress and pressure, but I think I'm lucky because I come from a different source point.
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My wife is completely different from me: she's good with everyone, whereas I'm good at directed conversation when I have a purpose for it, like now. If everyone's sitting around being social, I'm not great.
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My wife, Keisha, came home once, and I had these violinists playing for her, and I'd prepared dinner for her, and I write poems. She's pretty amazing, so I like to celebrate that. She's really taught me how to celebrate life; that's something I've learned.
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It's tough when you have to be away. But I'm probably at home more than my dad was because he was working two or three jobs sometimes.
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To try and act like we haven't had great progress is not true. Obama didn't fail - he changed the psyche of the nation and, in some ways, the world.
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I'm inspired to work with good actors, period. I want to work with the best anytime because I think they'll make me better.
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I've had many incidents in my life of racism. I've been thrown on the ground. I've been frisked. I've been arrested so many times I couldn't tell you. I have no need to talk about it.
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I think the only consistent thing is that I like projects that explore different social themes. 'Our Family Wedding' is a comedy, but it deals with two different cultures coming together. It's also about people letting go.
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If I go to a reunion in east Texas, my mother's side or my father's, one out of ten is a preacher or a teacher. That's just the way it is in my family.
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Ultimately, all human beings fulfill their patterns. We're set in a certain archetype, and we fulfill that destiny.
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My eye? It's a genetic thing. My dad had it, and now I have it. You know, I just found out that it may be correctable a little bit, because it does impair my vision. When I look up, I lose sight in this eye. I think, maybe for other people, it informs the way they see me.
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I'm always surprised when an actor goes so deeply into the truth that they shake you to your core.
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I think I've made some choices that maybe I wasn't so sure about for some reason or another. But I'm one of the lucky ones. Even when I was young, I played Bird, and that's a role people wait for their whole lifetime.
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It's hard for me to judge my own films as an artist sometimes. But as an artist, I did feel a fulfillment working on them, you know?
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I had been playing really interesting roles before I got great roles. Little ones - 'The Crying Game' I loved working on, and then 'Bird,' 'Ghost Dog,' so many films.
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In life, there's a ladder sometimes, and maybe at the top, there's a mirror. You take a step up, then maybe three steps down... just because you don't want to face the decloaking in the mirror.
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I stay true because whatever the project is, I'm still looking for inside of that character. It's the thing that connects him to me and to everybody else. So, the search is the same. It's to unveil the truth, and that's how I stay true, because my purpose isn't altered.
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I try to live my life in a holistic way, show that all of it intersects because I'm coming from the same place. Now, at the core of it, I'm just trying to connect and be there, so I'm trying to be there for my family, my wife, my kids, my friends.
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I'd spend every summer in Longview on my grandfather's farm. It was a tiny little town divided by a river, which was the segregation line: that side white, this side black. And meanwhile, I lived in Compton - basically, another whole world sealed into 10 square blocks. It's interesting how insular an environment can be.
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You have to ask if the country would have been ready for Barack Obama if we hadn't been prepared by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. If they hadn't already been in positions of enormous power and influence - secretary of state, secretary of defence - you know what I mean?
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