Ruby Dee

Life can't die. It's a contradiction.

The economics of life is against the family.

My constant battle is putting aside time wasters, and I have to watch out for procrastination. Staying on the path of something you're trying to create has much to do with having confidence in yourself and in your capacity to realize the things you want out of life.

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity.

I'm very much interested in getting prisons off the stock market. I'm very much interested in upgrading the public school system... and taking a second look at capital punishment.

An Oscar nomination? That would be a very satisfying thing, I'm sure. I would appreciate the thought. It would be like taking your hat off as an actor to all the people who walk through you.

You hear people say, 'We take our Tennessee Williams very seriously. There is no laughter here.' It's full of humor! Not to laugh is a big, bad mistake!

One reason I didn't trust my writing for so long was that I always considered myself a serious dramatic actor. But people would always laugh when I shared my writing with them. It took my husband to help me see that I really am part humorist.

I don't remember, as a child, feeling a lack of anything.

I don't know who I would be if I weren't this child from Harlem, this woman from Harlem. It's in me so deep.

Racism is a very insidious thing. It's dangerous to the psyche, to mind and body. It erodes the self-confidence. And I don't know how we get through it.

The Divine Impulse - it's always safe to follow it. We've got to trust it and go wherever it takes us. Especially women.