Quotes from Ving Rhames

Since God is the foundation of my life, anything that streams from that can only be positive.

It's really how you deal with people. Do people respect you? Are you honest with people even if it's something they don't want to hear? Anyone in Hollywood will tell you I'm extremely up front and honest almost to a fault.

Really, if you get in the ring and box with someone for real, I don't think it is a sport. As far as professional fighters, you are literally putting your life on the line.

The only difference between working on a huge-budget film and a lesser-budget film, is the quality of lunch and dinner.

I try to base my life on the principles of Christ. I try to raise my family on the principles of Christ. I don't know if that makes me religious.

A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the character was written a little more generic.

I graduated college in 1983, so that's 32 years, and all I've done for a living is act or commercials or voiceovers. So I have nothing to complain about.

Since I graduated college, all I have ever done for a living was acting.

My wife is a former homicide detective, LAPD. The wonderful thing that I was able to capture is my wife's experiences from human and professional, and how do you deal with some of the atrocities that happen in L.A. and not bring them home.

I saw how, when my brother smoked reefer, it made my mother cry. He was 16 at the time. And I saw that she broke down and cried. I never wanted to hurt my mother, so I kept away from drugs.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, I saw something - I don't know what it was to this day. My mind couldn't relate to what it was... If I saw it and knew it was a shark, I wouldn't be as afraid, but I saw something that looked prehistoric, and I haven't been snorkeling since.

There's really not that much difference between you and I. And my name really doesn't matter. Hopefully, my heart and my spirit matters to you. Hopefully.

For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.

You don't have to make, you know, $3 Million dollars a movie, or $20 Million dollars a movie, but if you make a living doing what you love doing, then that's success to me.

I live a very simple life.

In this industry, very few actors can control their career.

How do you cut off the human side and just maintain being professional? So what I've done is I've incorporated that with Kojak - there's times when he allows the human condition, the human experience, to integrate into him as a professional.

I was more interested in playing sports than acting. I didn't take acting too seriously until the end of my junior year.

Are you intimidated by me? Because if you're intimidated by me, that's something you'll have to deal with.

I find early jazz to be the most revolutionary music of its time.

If someone's intimidated by me, that's something they have to deal with. When I walk down the streets of New York and an old woman grabs her purse when I pass by, I'm not going to give it a whole lot of energy because I'm not in the wrong. I'm a millionaire, and I'm not thinking about grabbing an old woman's purse.

When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.

Most American actors are taught the Stanislavsky method... Method acting, but I really think that as an actor you have to develop what works for you. There is really not one way of doing anything. There are many ways of achieving the same goal.

I've known Laurence Fishburne for about twenty years.