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" 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

Live

You

She

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" 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. "

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" The gratification comes, for me, in the doing of it. And once I've done it, I can't do anything about it if it's good or if it's bad. "

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" 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

Man

Ahead

" You never know what motivates you. "

" My gratification in working comes from the preparation and the building of the character. "

" 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

Know

Decision

" I don't think you can measure wealth in dollars and cents. I really don't believe that at all because there are some things that money cannot buy. One of them is health. And the other is security in your relationships and friends. "

" As far as 'Jane Pittman,' I don't know that I could verbalize, to this day, what I felt once I got into that role. I did a tremendous amount of research. I need to feel as though I am in the person's skin. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Now, I am perfectly willing to just enjoy my career by choosing roles simply because I consider them to be a challenge and doing the best possible job I can. "

" 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. "

" I have learned not to allow rejection to move me. "

" Age is just a number. Life and aging are the greatest gifts that we could possibly ever have. "

" I didn't want to be an actress; I never thought of being an actress because, as children, there were three of us - I was the middle child - and we spent our time in church from Sunday morning to Saturday night. "

" 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

Juice

You

" 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

Black

Believe

" How do you project a character if you don't have a sense of where she is from? I've always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces. "

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

" I feel so guilty about the state of young people today. And I say that because our generation fought for everything. We fought to sit down at a counter, to sit on a bus. They were left with nothing to fight for. "