Tyson Cicely Quotes & Sayings

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. — Karl Marx

Children should have a balanced start in life: a mother and a father. I think that's the only reason to get married. — Cicely Tyson

This Lunar Beauty

This lunar beauty
Has no history,
Is complete and early;
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It had a lover
And is another.

This like a dream
Keeps other time,
And daytime is
The loss of this;
For time is inches
And the heart's changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.

But this was never
A ghost's endeavour
Nor, finished this,
Was ghost at ease;
And till it pass
Love shall not near
The sweetness here
Nor sorrow take
His endless look. — W. H. Auden

But learn this custom from the flower: silence your tongue. — Rumi

One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights. — Cicely Tyson

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it. — Cicely Tyson

If each person in this world will simply take a small piece of this huge thing, this amazing quilt, and work it regardless of the color of the yarn, we will have harmony on this planet. — Cicely Tyson

When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused. — Cicely Tyson

Whatever good I have accomplished as an actress I believe came in direct proportion to my efforts to portray black women who have made positive contributions to my heritage. — Cicely Tyson

The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat. — Cicely Tyson

Can we call a moratorium on the use of the term 'ladyparts'? Grazia! — Lena Dunham

I starred in a Broadway play that was Sidney Poitier's first directing job and the cast was Lou Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ladd and I played a Jewish kid who offered himself as a slave to two Columbia University students as reparations. — David Steinberg

Sure, you could go out and make Jaws today. But all of the sequels to Jaws weren't good. They are all worthless. The Godfather II is the only sequel that I have ever seen that is as good as or better than the original. — William Friedkin

I don't condemn anyone for making their choices. If someone chooses those roles, fine. But not for me. When someone stops me and says, You're the reason I became an actress, that lets me know I made the right decision. — Cicely Tyson

Writers are asked, 'How could you know so much about [fill in the profession]?' The answer, if the writing satisfies, is that one makes it up. And the job, my job, as a dramatist, was not to write accurately, but to write persuasively. If and when I do my job well, subsequent cowboys, as it were, will talk like me. — David Mamet

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. — Cicely Tyson

My mother was an introvert and quite religious. And we were brought up in the church. And when she learned that I wanted to act, she simply said: 'You cannot live here and do that.' — Cicely Tyson

We are fortunate men then," Frank smiled. "Most people, even the ones who are lucky enough to like what they do, find themselves feeling hopelessly trapped in horror. Horror at the fact they are going to have to do the same things, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. They long for vacations and better money to get them out of the useless wheel. The wheel that so many will grind away at until their deaths. Do you think that men like you and I can just lose ourselves with a certain sense of delusion into pretending that we like what we do? — Jaime Allison Parker

All I have to do is find someone who has something to say that will enrich my life and they can't get rid of me — Cicely Tyson

I was in California when this journalist made a blanket statement about the fact that she did not think that black men and women had the kind of love relationship that Rebecca and Nathan had in Sounder. — Cicely Tyson

I am not a quitter. I will fight until I drop. It is just a matter of having some faith in the fact that as long as you are able to draw breath in the universe, you have a chance. — Cicely Tyson

What melancholy thought,' said the King, 'can possibly reach your heart when I place mine as a rampart before it? — Alexandre Dumas

We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them? — Cicely Tyson

Far from being a pack of baying butchers,critics sometimes have a perverse habit of tending to the sick and wounded on the cinematic field of battle, rushing in where angels fear to tread, even when the patient is clearly without a pulse. — Mark Kermode

The choices of roles I made had to do with educating and entertaining. And as a result I found myself working only every two or three years. — Cicely Tyson

Ali ... we should have gone to see that movie. Malcolm X was another one. — Cicely Tyson

I love a lot of these older actresses, like Cicely Tyson, who played Kunta Kinte's mother in 'Roots.' She was really great, and I like seeing her because every movie she plays, she plays a strong character. As a kid, she was really inspiring to me. — Keke Palmer

You cannot trust your eyes, if your imagination is out of focus. — Mark Twain

There wouldn't be a Halle Berry or an Angela Bassett or a Cicely Tyson if there hadn't been a Lena Horne. — Dee Dee Bridgewater

You never know what motivates you. — Cicely Tyson

I saw that I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. So I made a choice to use my career as a platform to address the issues of the race I was born into. — Cicely Tyson

When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going. — Cicely Tyson

One lady told me that before she saw 'Sounder' she didn't believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people. — Cicely Tyson

In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform. — Cicely Tyson

I started off in drama, and there are so many women that I admire. Women in this industry are gladiators. Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Taraji Henson, Regina Hall, Regina King. — Bresha Webb

Car-essential is a real turn-off to me, so yeah, I just want a friendly holiday resort with a villa and a pool, but which is really private, but there again, there's a supermarket and a doctor's and a beach a five-minute walk away. That's all I want, and it's quite difficult to find. — Robert Webb

Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor. — Viola Davis

Be Shameless. Experiment. This is the only way to identify your true passion. — Vishwas Mudagal

When I came to America, I told my dad I wanted to be an actress. — Odeya Rush