Quotes from Ruby Dee

Black filmmakers - I'm grateful for them.

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.

We women have a great function to perform. The world needs us.

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!

You should always be prepared to win. But as much as I tell myself that, I've accepted another kind of role. Racism undercuts expectation, something like that. I'm not saying that to excuse myself from anything, but I've lived all this time, and things don't happen.

I shined shoes; I did windows.

I respect the fact that a director has studied the text and the road map of work before us, the subtleties, interconnections, underpinnings... His job is to paint the entire picture and knows all the colors that have to be in it.

The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.

God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.

When you know my love, my love will warm you.

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

Art is in the process of redefining our relationships to each other ... The creative minds are bubbling, bubbling, and I know the soup that's coming up next time is going to feed a lot more of us.

We are all a tiger with feelings. An elephant who never forgets. We are tiger, panther, monkey - we are all of these things, all of the life rhythms.

I don't think the arts would have been as meaningful to me if I hadn't grown up in Harlem.

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.

I have always been against the gangster as hero.

Paradise is to be the ultimate instrument, fulfilling God's desperate intent that we love each other.

When you know my love, my love will warm you.

I didn't have the kind of talent or personality that kept me dreaming about Hollywood. They don't hire little colored girls to do this or that. After I got that in my head, I took another direction.

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.

You can only appreciate freedom when you find yourself in a position to fight for someone else's freedom and not worry about your own.

You have to learn how to be married. You have to learn to love somebody.

Oh, I'm impressed with Lorraine Hansberry. She was a genius at whose feet I could sit.

It's getting increasingly difficult to be a dreamer under any circumstances.