Sidney Poitier

“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.”

“I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.”

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

“I sometimes like the pictures photographers take of me.”

“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 father was the quintessential husband and dad.”

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

“In my case, the body of work stands for itself... I think my work has been representative of me as a man.”

“As a man, I've been representative of the values I hold dear. And the values I hold dear are carryovers from the lives of my parents.”

“If the screen does not make room for me in the structure of their screenplay, I'll step out. I'll step back. I'd step back. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it.”

“But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots.”

“I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it.”

“I was a gift to my mother. She was a remarkable person. God or nature, or whatever those forces are, smiled on her, then passed me the best of her.”

“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...”

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

“I want my great-granddaughter to have a fairly good understanding of the world in which I lived for 81 years and also the world before I came into it - all the way back a hundred thousand ye...”