You know, when you don’t go on TV and talk about how many women you sleep with, some people in Hollywood, that are supposedly ‚in the know,‘ start whispering that you’re gay. If I were gay, I wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it, but I’m not.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

I don’t really regard myself as a political figure.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.

My connection with Brazil is so abstract. My blood and my way of thinking is Brazilian, but that’s it. I don’t tend to go back to the past, and although I have an apartment there, I rarely visit. When I move, I really move.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

When you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up. Once you get to the point where Hollywood sees that you create results, then the demand for you becomes higher.

I’m sick of the tabloids‘ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

I’m not lesbian; I’m not bisexual; I’m not straight. I’m just curious.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

I’m not concerned with people seeing me in a certain way. Some people see me as a kid, some people see me as an adult. But I’m seriously not going to complain how anybody sees me, as long as they see me.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

I think the message has already been sent to Hollywood, which is that this kid’s a hard worker, he’s talented, and people are coming out to see him. And when you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up.

I really do feel part of America to my very bones; at the same time, I know that I come from somewhere else.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

How do I know about a man’s needs for a sex symbol? I’m a girl.

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‚There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.‘ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.

Woman’s at best a contradiction still.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

I’ll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it’s disappointing.

I feel Anglo-American.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

We can have no ’50-50′ allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

I’m not really a Hollywood person. Not that I don’t like L.A., but I’m just a Northern California guy.

I am what I am. A fighter.

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

Your life will be a blessed and balanced experience if you first honor your identity and priority.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

I’m almost like three people. There’s me the, Dolly, the person. There’s me, the star. And then there’s me, the manager.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

I really hope someday in Hollywood, some producer or director will hire me only to do drama.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

It’s nice to finally get scripts offered to me that aren’t the ones Tom Hanks wipes his butt with.

This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno, he’s Frank and in Chicago he’s Ernest.