James Earl Jones

Actor

1931-01-17

Quotes by James Earl Jones

• In the wintertime, in the snow country, citrus fruit was so rare, and if you got one, it was better than ambrosia.

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• So in my sophomore year, I took a senior anatomy class. I thought anatomy - being the thing that I should be most interested in - and if I could hack, as we called it, a senior class, I would continue. I didn't hack the senior class.

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• When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

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• Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I'd try to read my lessons, and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter.

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• You sang in church, you know, and you didn't act at all. You tried not to act, you tried to tell the truth. The idea of being a troubadour on the road singing for your supper was very disturbing to him.

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• So in my junior year, I switched to the drama department.

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• Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers. I'm just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, 'Okay, I'll do that.'

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• My grandmother though, began to prepare in her own neurotic - and I think psychotic - way to face racism. So she taught us to be racist, which is something I had to undo later when I got to Michigan, you know.

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• One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

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• And it was the idea that you can do a play - like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever - and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life.

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• Speech is a very important aspect of being human. A whisper doesn't cut it.

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• Even during the rationing period, during World War II, we didn't have the anxiety that we'd starve, because we grew our own potatoes, you know? And our own hogs, and our own cows and stuff, you know.

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• When you are mute, you become a good listener - it's all one-way. You appreciate the written word. You appreciate the sound.

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• My youngest uncle Randy and I were the first members of our entire family to ever go to college.

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• We used to be shiftless and lazy, now we're fearsome and awesome. I think the black man should take pride in that.

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