Cicely Tyson Quotes

#1. I love a lot of these older actresses, like Cicely Tyson, who played Kunta Kinte's mother in 'Roots.' She was really great, and I like seeing her because every movie she plays, she plays a strong character. As a kid, she was really inspiring to me.

Keke Palmer

#2. Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.

Viola Davis

#3. There wouldn't be a Halle Berry or an Angela Bassett or a Cicely Tyson if there hadn't been a Lena Horne.

Dee Dee Bridgewater

#4. I starred in a Broadway play that was Sidney Poitier's first directing job and the cast was Lou Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ladd and I played a Jewish kid who offered himself as a slave to two Columbia University students as reparations.

David Steinberg

#5. I started off in drama, and there are so many women that I admire. Women in this industry are gladiators. Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Taraji Henson, Regina Hall, Regina King.

Bresha Webb

#6. When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused.

Cicely Tyson

#7. Ali ... we should have gone to see that movie. Malcolm X was another one.

Cicely Tyson

#8. Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.

Cicely Tyson

#9. I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.

Cicely Tyson

#10. Dive into the sea of thought, and find there pearls beyond price.

Moses Ibn Ezra

#11. I was in California when this journalist made a blanket statement about the fact that she did not think that black men and women had the kind of love relationship that Rebecca and Nathan had in Sounder.

Cicely Tyson

#12. If you think success will make you happy, you have it backwards.

Oliver

#13. One lady told me that before she saw 'Sounder' she didn't believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people.

Cicely Tyson

#14. One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights.

Cicely Tyson

#15. The choices of roles I made had to do with educating and entertaining. And as a result I found myself working only every two or three years.

Cicely Tyson

#16. When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going.

Cicely Tyson

#17. All I have to do is find someone who has something to say that will enrich my life and they can't get rid of me

Cicely Tyson

#18. We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them?

Cicely Tyson

#19. When I began, poetry was very academic. You published little pamphlets from fancy presses. It was rather ... chaste. There wasn't much public reading. Then there was poetry and jazz, which I don't think worked, though I love jazz.

John Fuller

#20. Children should have a balanced start in life: a mother and a father. I think that's the only reason to get married.

Cicely Tyson

#21. If each person in this world will simply take a small piece of this huge thing, this amazing quilt, and work it regardless of the color of the yarn, we will have harmony on this planet.

Cicely Tyson

#22. My mother was an introvert and quite religious. And we were brought up in the church. And when she learned that I wanted to act, she simply said: 'You cannot live here and do that.'

Cicely Tyson

#23. I don't condemn anyone for making their choices. If someone chooses those roles, fine. But not for me. When someone stops me and says, You're the reason I became an actress, that lets me know I made the right decision.

Cicely Tyson

#24. I am not a quitter. I will fight until I drop. It is just a matter of having some faith in the fact that as long as you are able to draw breath in the universe, you have a chance.

Cicely Tyson

#25. Whatever good I have accomplished as an actress I believe came in direct proportion to my efforts to portray black women who have made positive contributions to my heritage.

Cicely Tyson

#26. In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform.

Cicely Tyson

#27. There are words bandied about that are being misused - words like 'socialism,' words like 'communism,' words like 'fascism.'

Jim Leach

#28. One realizes how we take water for granted and how important it is to have it in order to stay alive. Beyond the drinking of it, let's not forget the hygiene.

Kim Basinger

#29. You never know what motivates you.

Cicely Tyson

#30. I saw that I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. So I made a choice to use my career as a platform to address the issues of the race I was born into.

Cicely Tyson

#31. The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.

Cicely Tyson