Mahershala Ali Quotes

Environment is a sculptor - a painter. If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana. As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.

Alcoholism is a genetically predisposed disease and it does run in my family. I also think I felt like a misfit. I was in the South, everybody was blonde. I just didn't feel like I fitted in. It was sort of my way of fitting.

I was regarded as the school freak which further reinforced a lot of inhibitions and doubts I had about myself. I was a shy, frightened teenager for a long time.

Everybody either wanted to take care of me or push me around, you know? I was teased a lot, sure I was, of course. Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, everybody was taking their spurts except me. I was not growing up.

High school is such an awkward, difficult time, and I think a lot of people can't wait to explore the world because it's such a bubble.

Other kids did drugs; I did crafts. I never knew where I fit in.

Everyone related to me in my circle was from church: church friends, church school, church activities. All my friends weren't allowed to watch MTV or go to PG-13 movies or listen to the radio, so I didn't really know anything different. That's how I was raised.

I think all teenagers feel alone, and that nobody else knows what they are going through and all that sort of stuff.

I had very few friends. We always ate dinner with our parents. We didn't want to go out. American adolescence was a lot wilder than I would have felt comfortable with.

I was raised Catholic in the Midwest, so I can't enjoy anything.

Growing up in Wales was a pretty Draconian experience with religion.

As teenagers, we all see ourselves as outsiders... and it's very easy to look at other people who are more popular, who have more pocket money, and it makes you feel even more like an outsider, and it does shape who you become as a person.

I was kind of a weird kid in high school. I didn't have many friends in my age group because all they wanted to do was fight and have riots.

As far back as I can remember, my mother would have me down by the bed at night with her, praying. I can still hear her voice calling my name to God and telling him that she wanted me to follow him in whatever he called me to do.

I spent my whole adolescence, when you just want to be accepted, looking much younger than everyone else.

My mom was very religious. She might have let me buy records, but I assumed that she wouldn't.

At 16, I was in Toronto and very shy and not hanging around with anyone who was intellectual in the slightest, so I didn't really have the means to discuss what I was seeing and feeling.

My mother desperately wanted to give her kids a wholesome environment, and we were born into a traditional Catholic family.

I did not have the moments of so-called normal people during adolescence, like going out with friends, enjoying good times.

I remember being a kid and always feeling a little different than all my friends.

At a young age, I was very aware I was different and not perceived in a good way. For a lot of my adolescence, I struggled with that, trying to identify where I belong and who my real friends are.

I wasn't allowed to date in high school.

I was that gay kid in high school who didn't have a lot of close friends but circulated amongst groups of people when necessary.

I weighed 84 pounds when I was 14. I was an easy target for the other kids.

So, I was born and raised the youngest of seven children on this really beautiful mountain in Southern Idaho. But my dad had some radical beliefs. And because of those beliefs, we were isolated. So I was never allowed to go to school or to the doctor.