Louis Gossett, Jr. Quotes
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Never made a million dollars from any of my 78 movies. People thought I had this fortune, which I never had.
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I was down in Wilmington, Delaware, doing 'The Desk Set' with Shirley Booth. I was at the DuPont Hotel. I walked out, and there was this grill next door called the New England Grill. I loved seafood. They said very nicely, 'We don't serve colored people.'
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After the Academy Award, well, I was left with a lot of time on my hands. I thought I'd get a lot of offers - and they didn't come.
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I think more important than law is the hearts of people.
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I believe the gift of acting is a gift from God, my oath to God, and I want to make sure on a daily basis that it is honed and deeply spiritual... I want to believe that the audience believes that my acting comes from this special place.
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My father's best friend, Georgie Terra, was an Italian guy. The children and the cousins and nieces and nephews were children of the Mafia. Those were the children he grew up with. If you want to go to a safe neighborhood, go to where the Mafia is.
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Some Marine units actually use 'An Officer and a Gentleman' in their training programs.
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There are beautiful words in the Bible and in our pledges and the Declaration of Independence.
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One of my best friends while shooting 'Roots' was Vic Morrow, the guy that whips Kunta.
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I'm cancer-free. And I'm on antioxidants and acupuncture and a different diet. And I have a different outlook on life. I don't have resentment any more. It's wonderful.
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It's presumptuous for us to think we are the only beings in the cosmos.
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I am so grateful that the public has given me this gift. They look at me as a person - not as a race or a color. The word for it is freedom - to be accepted as me.
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I think God asks us to promise to replenish the planet and to pay 100% attention to our young so that they will develop character and a good conscience.
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If a role isn't different, it's not worth doing.
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The two lines from 'Roots' that stick out to me are, 'You no more in Africa. You in America now,' and what I said after Kunta escaped: 'What is it like to be free, Kunta? It must be something.'
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We started the family Bible after slavery was abolished. My great-grandmother remembered the Bible being started, which meant that she was a slave as a young girl. When she died, the Bible was at least 105 years old, so she must have been nearly 115 years old. Her daughter, my grandmother, died at 97, and her husband at 98.
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I was always told that I'd have to do a movie with a white guy in order to get the money. That's the way it was. That made me feel that I should have chosen some other profession, so I could have gotten my just deserts.
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When '12 Years a Slave' got that much attention, everyone started to copy that. That story has to be told, but there are a lot more stories to be told than slavery.