Whoopi Goldberg

All I really want to do is just keep acting, and some of it will stink, and some of it will be really good, and maybe when I'm 85 and presenting an Oscar like Bette Davis did, I can look back and say, 'It was okay, I did all right.'

When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.

I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?

It's being willing to walk away that gives you strength and power - if you're willing to accept the consequences of doing what you want to do.

I think the idea that you know who your inner self is on a daily basis, because... you know. What's good for you 25 years ago may not be good for you now. So, to keep in touch with that, I think that's the first ingredient for success. Because if you're a successful human being, everything else is gravy, I think.

I'm fighting the label of 'Black' actress simply because it's very limiting in people's eyes, especially people who are making movies.

Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.

An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything.

You know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.

There are roles I am never considered for. Meryl Streep roles, let's say. Why not? I really wanted to do 'Ironweed,' for example, because the depression era in this country was one of the best for multiracial people, because everybody was poor. Everybody lived in the tents, and under buildings, and under gratings, together.

I don't have to be bam, bam, bam, funny when I'm working. I can tell stories, and there's some funny in them.

When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked.