Quotes by 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 ...”

“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 Sou...”

“You never know what motivates you.”

“Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch what make you go beyond the norm.”

“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.”

“My parents began their married life together in a Bronx tenement before later relocating to Manhattan's East Side. The year after they wed, they welcomed my brother, Melrose, a name my father had l...”

“The truth is, I've always been quietly proud of my real age. Why wouldn't I want to celebrate every crease in my brow, all that hard-earned wisdom that lives between the folds? If my first manager,...”

“…it happened because I learned that I could speak through other people. I was a very shy child. I was an observer. I would sit and observe and listen and watch people's actions in order to understa...”

“…I was doing a promotion for Sounder. And after the film was completed, this journalist said that he discovered a bit of bigotry in himself. But he realized that this Black boy ... [actor] Kevin Ho...”

“I wish people knew the Miles Davis that I knew. Really. Because you can walk into a bookstore and you see reams of books about Miles Davis. And few people who wrote those books know him. The Miles ...”

“Challenges make you discover things about yourself you never really knew. They are what make the instrument stretch what make you go beyond the norm”

“Just stick with it. Just stick with it. There's always a reason why you keep going in the direction you chose to go in.”

“To thine on self be true. Do that, and you’ll have no regrets.”