SIDNEY POITIER

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

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 have always been a learner because I knew nothing.

I couldn't adjust to the racism in Florida.

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 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.

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

I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me.

I had two roles for which I compromised.

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

Far as I can tell, I still have most of my hair, my gut is not hanging over my belt, and I still have all of my teeth.

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

The journey has been incredible from its beginning.

Generally, I tend to despise human behavior rather than human creatures.

But my dad also was a remarkable man, a good person, a principled individual, a man of integrity.

I sometimes like the pictures photographers take of me.

I'll always be chasing you... Glory.

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.

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

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

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

I was not the kind of a principal player that was so in demand that eight or 10 or 12 scripts came per month.

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.

If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you're not going to get very far. You simply won't.