Billy Crystal Quotes

I'm comfortable being old... being black... being Jewish.

Billy Crystal

• Black

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Quotes to Explore

• When I went to drama school, I knew I was at least as talented as other students, but because I was a black man and I wasn't pretty, I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed.

  

  Lance Reddick
  • Work
  • School
  • Pretty

• I think that it's hard enough being an adolescent and wanting so much to fit in with your peers, your schoolmates, and to erase any sign of difference, to be part of the group. And being biracial but also being black in a predominately white school marked me as different.

  

  Natasha Trethewey
  • Different
  • School
  • Think

• I love to drive in the Black Hills of Wyoming and South Dakota with Mount Rushmore as the central stop.

  

  Dana Perino
  • Love
  • Black
  • Stop

• At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.

  

  Walter Mosley
  • Time
  • World
  • Good

• To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world.

  

  Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • World
  • Black
  • Youth

• There was a time I was no longer going to be black. I was going to be an 'intellectual.' When I was first looking around for colleges, thinking of colleges I couldn't afford to go to, I was thinking of being a philosopher. I began to understand then that much of my feelings about race were negative.

  

  Walter Dean Myers
  • Time
  • Thinking
  • Black

• People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • People
  • Think
  • Fact

• All these police treating our people wrong, man. Black lives matter, but we got fans of all different colors, so all lives matter.

  

  Quavo Migos
  • People
  • Different
  • Man

• We did a play of 'Frog and Toad' at my elementary school. And I'm not sure if this is part of the book or it was something that we made up on our own, but I auditioned to play the black hole, which somehow makes sense to me.

  

  Hailey Gates
  • Up
  • School
  • Book

• People only look at you and say, 'You are black and you are from the banlieue,' and all the doors are closed. I had the desire to be something else. If I see a door that is a little open, I will find a way to get through.

  

  Omar Sy
  • People
  • Black
  • Desire

• I was 26 when I went to my first acting class. I'm naturally quite shy. I'm a quite private person. There's this really strange acting class in New York called Black Nexxus. For someone who's slightly shy or self-conscious, it's the most frightening thing you can do.

  

  Hannah Ware
  • Black
  • Acting
  • New York

• My workday begins around 11 A.M., with a cup of black coffee in each hand. If I had more hands, there would be more coffee.

  

  Aaron Levie
  • Black
  • Hand
  • Hands

• If a little black girl in Montgomery, Alabama, or some far-reaching region sees something that I do and aspires to do it one day with the knowledge that she can achieve it, then hey, my work is done.

  

  Octavia Spencer
  • Work
  • Done
  • She

• I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed.

  

  Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • People
  • Think
  • Black

• I spent seven months in Africa and came back saying there isn't anything you can say about black people that you couldn't say about, say, pink people except that they're black.

  

  Larry Rivers
  • People
  • Black
  • Saying

• My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive.

  

  Ice T
  • Mother
  • Father
  • Black

• There's not too many rich black people in this world.

  

  Barry Bonds
  • People
  • World
  • Black

• Sidney Poitier and Sidney Lumet were instrumental in helping me get started as the first black composer to get name credit for movie scores.

  

  Quincy Jones
  • Movie
  • Black
  • Name

• I read so much stuff that black women say, especially about my relationship. 'Oh, he left his black wife to go be with some exotic chick.' First of all, my girl is black: she's Jamaican.

  

  Kevin Hart
  • Women
  • She
  • Black

• I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go, but politics stay the same at all times. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones. These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is what happens with every administration.

  

  Vladimir Putin
  • People
  • Black
  • Powerful

• Having your stuff online - some people think of it as gimmicky, but in a way, it's one of the most pure forms of having your work judged.

  

  Tavi Gevinson
  • People
  • Work
  • Think

• I was a chubby kid, an outsider, and then all of a sudden I shot up to 6 foot 2, and people started calling me handsome. I couldn't accept it; I couldn't see it.

  

  Dan Amboyer
  • People
  • Up

• So, you pick this stuff here and this stuff there and then you see things in certain ways and you start visualizing and thank God I get the chance to do this. It's really the greatest thing in the whole wide world.

  

  Danny DeVito
  • World
  • God

• I'm comfortable being old... being black... being Jewish.

  

  Billy Crystal
  • Black