Top 44 Sidney Poitier Quotes

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

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

I get offered work these days.

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

My father was a certain kind of man – I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father’s name.

I was fortunate enough to have been raised to a certain point before I got into the race thing. I had other views of what a human is, so I was never able to see racism as the big question. Racism was horrendous, but there were other aspects to life.

I am not a hugely religious person, but I believe that there is a oneness with everything. And because there is this oneness, it is possible that my mother is the principal reason for my life.

Jackie Robinson is a true legend.

I had two roles for which I compromised.

If the screen does not make room for me in the structure of their screenplay, I’ll step out. I’ll step back. I’d step back. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it.

My wife collects knickknacks.

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.

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.

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

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

I have always been a learner because I knew nothing.

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

History passes the final judgment.

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.

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.

My father was very big on marriage.

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.

If I’m remembered for having done a few good things, and if my presence here has sparked some good energies, that’s plenty.

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

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

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

I couldn’t adjust to the racism in Florida.

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

I don’t very often read novels.

I was a gift to my mother. She was a remarkable person. God or nature, or whatever those forces are, smiled on her, then passed me the best of her.

Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson’s.

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

I’m a good person.

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

My autobiography was simply the story of my life.

My mother was the most amazing person. She taught me to be kind to other women. She believed in family. She was with my father from the first day they met. All that I am, she taught me.

I learned to hear silence. That’s the kind of life I lived: simple. I learned to see things in people around me, in my mom, dad, brothers and sisters.

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

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

I cannot be understood in three minutes.

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

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

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

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