I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, but I didn't really know I was a deprived, poverty-stricken child until the media made me aware of it.

Since God is the foundation of my life, anything that streams from that can only be positive.

The only difference between working on a huge-budget film and a lesser-budget film, is the quality of lunch and dinner.

You don't have to make, you know, $3 Million dollars a movie, or $20 Million dollars a movie, but if you make a living doing what you love doing, then that's success to me.

I like to say that I didn't choose acting - acting chose me.

Are you intimidated by me? Because if you're intimidated by me, that's something you'll have to deal with.

I saw how, when my brother smoked reefer, it made my mother cry. He was 16 at the time. And I saw that she broke down and cried. I never wanted to hurt my mother, so I kept away from drugs.

I was never a struggling actor, for which I feel very blessed.

For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.

I don't give Hollywood the power to limit me. Only God can limit me.

It can always get worse.

What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?

It's ridiculous and painful to use the Arabic of an Iraqi poet who lived centuries ago to describe what we in Iraq are suffering today.

The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it.

It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.

The system is not working. That is how a paradigm shift begins: the established way of seeing the world no longer functions.

Obviously from childhood to my teenage years, I really came into my own. I left the house early; I was on the streets when I was, like, 15. I've been holdin' my own since that age.

The black players at this club lend the side a lot of skill and flair, but you also need white players to balance things up and give the team some brains and common sense.

If the big rocks don't go in first, they aren't going to fit in later.

You can run for cover, you can run for help. You can run to your lover, but you can't ever run from yourself.

The undisturbed mind is like the calm body water reflecting the brilliance of the moon. Empty the mind and you will realize the undisturbed mind.