Quotes from George Takei

You know what the lowest rated episode we ever had was? Where Captain Kirk kissed Uhuru - a white man kissing an African-American woman. All the stations in the American South - in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana - refused to air it. And so our ratings plummeted.

In the United States, we have a large, broad middle that are decent, fair-minded people who are too busy to really think about issues other than their next paycheck. Those are the people that we want to get to in order to change the social climate. And Howard Stern has that audience. So I said, 'Let's boldly go where I've never been before.'

I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan who went to America, boldly going to a strange new world, seeking new opportunities. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. They met and married in Los Angeles, and I was born there.

Then that did very well at the box office, so before you knew it, we were in a string of feature motion pictures. Then they announced that they were going to do some spinoffs of us.

I love people. When you're engaged with society and trying to make it a better society, you're an optimist.

When I was a very young actor, I cruised around in a pretty cool vehicle called the Starship Enterprise.

I think being optimistic is ensuring your success. If you start out saying 'I've got this problem,' or 'I'm angry at that,' you will not succeed.

My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I've been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans.

As you know, when Star Trek was canceled after the second season, it was the activism of the fans that revived it for a third season.

Confidence in the human capacity for problem solving, for invention, for innovation.

Dramatic shows are the ones that I am attracted to.

It was an egregious violation of the American Constitution. We were innocent American citizens, and we were imprisoned simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. It shows us just how fragile our Constitution is.

I had convinced my father to let me pursue this career, and I passionately wanted it. And here was this conflict in me, and I hadn't shared it with my father. And it was excruciating to always have your guard up. Particularly because, being an actor, you're public and visible. I could be seen coming out of a gay bar. Who could have seen me?

If you have to make laws to hurt a group of people just to prove your morals and faith, then you have no true morals or faith to prove.

The large majority of faith-based people are decent, fair-minded people. We should not characterize people of faith as the adversaries of GLBT equality.

We need to take our passion and effect real change at the local, state, and federal levels, to help elect progressive leaders, and to stem the tide of division, fear and scapegoating.

We must remind ourselves that an assault on any one of our liberties and freedoms is an assault on all.

I do find things funny. When you see life through the eyes of someone with a good sense of humor, which my grandmother did, life is a human comedy.

STAR TREK is a show that had a vision about a future that was positive.