Quotes from George Takei

I was pursuing my acting career, but I was silent on the LGBT issue, the issue that was closest to me. I knew if I came out then, I'd have had to change careers.

It has long been a dream of mine that this important story one day would be told on the great American stage of Broadway. In fact, I've dedicated much of the latter half of my life to ensuring the story of the internment is known.

My grandmother lived to 104 years old, and part of her success was she woke up every morning to a brand new day. She said every morning is a new gift. Her favorite hobby was collecting birthdays.

I have a sister who is technophobic; she doesn't even use a computer.

When Brad and I got married in 2008, it got a lot of attention. And all the attention was over the fact that we were two men, but people were hardly conscious of the fact that we were entering into an interracial marriage. That's wonderful, because it was only 50 years ago with Loving v. Virginia that interracial marriages were made legal.

Yes, I remember the barbed wire and the guard towers and the machine guns, but they became part of my normal landscape. What would be abnormal in normal times became my normality in camp.

I'm most comfortable with my computer. Yes, I have an iPhone, but I've reached that point now where to read e-mails on my phone, I need my reading glasses. I'm most comfortable with the big-screen computer.

Gene Roddenberry continually reminded us that the Star Trek Enterprise was a metaphor for starship Earth. And the strength in this starship came from its diversity, coming together and working in concert as a team. That is the strength of our countries, Canada and the United States. We are nations of diversity.

Up until the time I was cast in 'Star Trek,' the roles were pretty shallow - thin, stereotyped, one-dimensional roles. I knew this character was a breakthrough role, certainly for me as an individual actor but also for the image of an Asian character: no accent, a member of the elite leadership team.

I'm proud of my relationship with 'Star Trek'! 'Star Trek' is a show that I am philosophically compatible with.

One of the gifts of 'Star Trek' is my professional work colleagues have become my lifelong friends.

Well, the whole history of Star Trek is the market demand.

'Star Trek' fans totally accepted my sexual orientation. There are a great number of LGBT people across 'Star Trek' fandom. The show always appealed to people that were different - the geeks and the nerds, and the people who felt they were not quite a part of society, sometimes because they may have been gay or lesbian.

At the core of 'Star Trek' is Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future. So much of science-fiction is about a dystopian society with human civilization having crumbled. He had an affirmative, shining, positive view of the future.

'Star Trek' is about acceptance, and the strength of the Starship Enterprise is that it embraces diversity in all its forms.

The central pillar of our justice system is due process. You have got to be charged with a crime. Then you can challenge those charges in a court of law with a trial.

People want to start their day off with a smile or, better yet, a guffaw.

I intend to live life, not just exist.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the same-sex marriage bill, my blood was boiling. I had been silent, but that night, Brad and I watched the news and saw all these young people pouring out on Santa Monica Boulevard venting their rage, and I said, 'I have to speak out.'

I grew up in the age of radio. That was my main boyhood form of entertainment: lying on the living room floor with my ears affixed to the radio. I loved shows like 'The Phantom,' 'Cisco Kid,' and even 'Happy Theater' when I was younger.

In Indiana, gays and lesbians can be fired from their jobs with impunity, and in Arkansas, it's the same thing. We need those protective laws to truly have an equal society.

When I heard Donald Trump make that sweeping hysterical statement that all Muslims have to be banned because they are terrorists, I was chilled by that.

It kills me to hear Donald Trump talking.

As my audience grew more diverse, I started interjecting social justice advocacy and commentaries about LGBT equality, and it just kept growing more.