Quotes from Ving Rhames

'Mission: Impossible' is basically entertainment, and for what it is, it's fine. I don't think most actors become actors to do that type of film.

Rosewood is what Americans did to Americans. We have to hold the mirror up... and look at ourselves. Sometimes that's an ugly sight. And sometimes you have to go through that pain - both black America and white America - so we can finally find some racial harmony.

I'm from New York, and yet I've done only one film executive-produced by Spike Lee and have never done a film that Spike Lee directed. I've never done a film that Keenan Wayans has directed, or Bill Duke.

I'm the spokesman for ADT, and ADT, brother, pays better than most actors make on film.

I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, but I didn't really know I was a deprived, poverty-stricken child until the media made me aware of it.

I don't know if I hadn't grown up poor, and in the neighborhood I did, if I would have had that much to bring to my art form. I call upon my past with characters.

When I look at the world, I recognize that unfortunately, it sometimes takes an atrocity like 9/11 to force us to come together.

I think there's so much we don't know and the unknown in the ocean; every 10 years or so, we find some fossil that's been there before mankind.

There could be some unknown actor who's a better actor than Ving Rhames, but no one knows that actor, so Ving Rhames will get the job.

The character of the computer whiz is not one that would normally be associated with me.

My approach to the work is the same, whether I had the lead or a supporting role. I consider myself a character actor in the true sense of the word. Unless I'm doing my autobiography, I'm playing a character.

I grew up in Harlem in New York, very rough, urban environment, and so what I found is that, if I can have kids travel to different places, countries, areas, it can expand their minds.

I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about.

Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.

I was never a struggling actor, for which I feel very blessed.

The more versatile you make yourself, the more work you get. Training makes you more versatile and ultimately gets you more work. Julliard taught me that.

The training at Juilliard School is classical training, and it really makes one very versatile.

The more you do a stunt, the more you increase the risk of something happening.

I think quite a bit of organized religion has become big business. Jesus Christ never sold the word of God. He never gave a sermon and then said, 'For $8.99, you can buy the CD.'

God is putting me in a position to affect people.

Rottweilers are victims of a stereotype. They're not that bad.

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

My dogs are family dogs.

Entertainment is needed, and so I do think escapism is needed.