Mekhi Phifer Quotes
I almost turned down '8 Mile.' I was due to start 'ER,' and I learned they really wanted me to be in '8 Mile.' I didn't know Eminem; I just knew he was a rapper and saw what everyone else saw in the media. I thought they were just trying to capitalize on his popularity.

Quotes to Explore
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Before I was 5, I did have a lot of time on my hands. I had no job and really no career, and I spent an awful lot of time listening to records. It was more the classical ones, really - Prokofiev, and I think there was some Mozart in there, and more impressionistic composers like Delius.
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You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.
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Any government that has a sincere desire for reform and progress should understand the benefit of objective and constructive criticism.
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I had moved across the country, taken internships, networked, worked long hours, and called in favors to get there. And I had done it. I was working in Hollywood. So imagine the melancholy I found myself in when I realized that I didn't love casting the way that I always thought I would.
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And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
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Yeah, I'm from Jersey; it's almost like I was automatically born a Nets fan.
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I have pictures of me sitting in the racquetball court in my pajamas with an acoustic guitar, and Wolfgang is probably just two-and-a-half-feet tall. I'll never forget the day I saw his foot tapping along in beat! I knew then, I couldn't wait for the day I'd be able to make music with my son. I don't know what more I could ask for.
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There's a lot of interviews now where nobody seems to talk about anything. Like it's illegal. But it can be fun if you stay involved. Like most conversations.
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The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans.
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My experience is that's rare - that you have a script that is... what they call 'film-ready.'
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Shaming people into being virtuous doesn't change behaviour.
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I'm just so grateful for the 10 years that I had in Sri Lanka when it was in the middle of a war and I was getting shot at, because now and again I remember glimpses of those times, and I just go, 'Wow, I'll never, ever see that again in my life. And I'm never gonna feel that, and I'm never gonna feel for a human being like that.'
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I enjoy building something good and having a successful product and making money.
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I was doing comedy in laundry mats in 1992, literally where I would bring a little gorilla amp and a lapel mike and just start performing.
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When the tech geeks talk, I pay close attention.
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Nobody wants to see a half-finished Vine.
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The first time I went to Iraq was October 2002, when Saddam was still in power, and then, subsequently, in January of 2003, about three-and-a-half months before the U.S. invasion. So, I got to see the before and after of Iraq, basically, before and after the war.
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X-rays revealed that some people were born without a corpus callosum, and they seemed just fine.
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Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.
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The great thing about having money is that you can actually just get on with your life and not have to think about paying the bills or crouch over 'The Wall Street Journal' or the 'Financial Times' and look at the stock figures and things like that. That bores me rigid.
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There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I'm not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.
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New York traffic can drive you crazy.
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I've been trying to find out what my wheelhouse is as an actor. 'Gilmore' was my first job, so only from there did I have a chance to really experiment and see how far I could stretch; I went maybe a little too far in certain directions.
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I almost turned down '8 Mile.' I was due to start 'ER,' and I learned they really wanted me to be in '8 Mile.' I didn't know Eminem; I just knew he was a rapper and saw what everyone else saw in the media. I thought they were just trying to capitalize on his popularity.