My family is Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist and Catholic. I don't believe in man-made religions.

I think the idea that you know who your inner self is on a daily basis, because... you know. What's good for you 25 years ago may not be good for you now. So, to keep in touch with that, I think that's the first ingredient for success. Because if you're a successful human being, everything else is gravy, I think.

If I was doing a talk show, I would do the kind of show that comes on just once a month, with amazing guests.

Taking action is hard, but know what? Enduring a bad situation can be its own hell.

Her least favorite thing: VOLUNTARY IGNORANCE

An actress can only play a woman,I'm an actor I can play anything

It you want to be somebody, If you want to go some where, you've got to wake up and pay attention

There are roles I am never considered for. Meryl Streep roles, let's say. Why not? I really wanted to do 'Ironweed,' for example, because the depression era in this country was one of the best for multiracial people, because everybody was poor. Everybody lived in the tents, and under buildings, and under gratings, together.

I grew up in a time when it would never have occurred to anyone to tell me there was anything I couldn't do.

I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me.

I am an artist, art has no color and no sex.

When I listen to these women, it makes what I thought were my hard knocks feel like little nudges.

If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of 20 million full-time volunteers.

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.

I'm fighting the label of 'Black' actress simply because it's very limiting in people's eyes, especially people who are making movies.

Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.

We are all here for a reason.I believe the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people thru the darkness.

We forgive sometimes, and sometimes we don't. One thing that's consistent is, at least in the early going, we love to punish and we need to find a villian.

Don't you believe that the punishment should fit the crime? Isn't that what justice is? Letely, though, I wonder if we've gotten more into vengenance than justice.

I should not ever live with anyone, because I just don't have the patience for it. I'm very cranky around other people.

TALIBAN-ESQUE Any behavior that imposes the beliefs of one person on everyone else. Conversations with the Taliban-esque are impossible. They aren't even conversations. WIth them, it's my way or no way.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. . . let us be above such transparent egotism.

How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.

Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.

Those who have suffered much become very bitter or very gentle.

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean

Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.

When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.

So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.

There have been only 268 of the past 3,421 years free of war.

History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.

In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.

In the end, nothing is lost. Every event, for good or evil, has effects forever.

In the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war.

Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.

You can’t fool all the people all the time,” but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.

[N]o language has ever had a word for a virgin man.

History is an excellent teacher with few pupils.

The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.

If we rated greatness by the influence of the great, we will say "Muhammad is the greatest of the great in history