Quotes from Billy Dee Williams

Oh, I paint all the time.

I think of film when I paint. Even the luminosity that I always keep working for is really about film. But my idea is not to paint paintings that will decorate somebody's house.

I think I'm a good father. As a parent, you have the responsibility to create a foundation for your children so that they can meet all the challenges.

I loved Marlon Brando: my favorite actor.

I don't want to sound too carried away, but from what I've seen, 'Bingo Long' is going to be a big one. A classic.

I am an artist no matter what I do. I live for creativity. I think everyone should. It is the antithesis of being destructive.

I was in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on a scholarship. I was - still am - an artist. They were looking for an actor for 'Take a Giant Step,' and a producer liked my look and asked if I could act. I said, 'Yep!' Then I got into acting more or less just to make money for paints and canvases.

It's in our nature. We need to explore and find out what's going on outside of who we are.

I think a lot of black filmmakers have done very well.

Power is a very peculiar thing. It's like the ego. The ego's only there to keep you above water. Once we realize something good about ourselves, we have a tendency to abuse the gift.

My idea is to paint paintings so that when you walk into a room, I'm pulling you in, or that makes you suddenly stop and wonder: 'What is this? There is something groovy, something else going on here.' Also, I want to give you what is obvious and what is not obvious to the eye.

I tend to approach characters not based on ethnicity but on some unique individual qualities, and I've set my whole life that way. I don't want any sort of limitations imposed on my work. If you truly want to be a creative person, you can't limit yourself.

Right before 'Brian's Song' there was a period when I was very despondent, broke, depressed; my first marriage was on the rocks. The role of Gale Sayers had been cast with Lou Gossett, and then he hurt himself playing basketball. I was called in to read for the role. I was their last choice, and I knew it.

As for Colt 45, I am very proud of my endorsement of the product, and it still 'Works every time.'

It was a time after 'Lady Sings the Blues' and 'Mahogany' and all those romantic movies: I became this romantic figure on the street in a very special way.

I take very good care of myself, and I've still got a lot of things I need and want to do - and I am still cute. Retiring seems like such a remote thing to me. The whole idea of it.

Failure's not a bad thing. It builds character. It makes you stronger.

I did something that no brown-skinned man in the movie industry ever did. I made a brown-skinned man look very romantic - a matinee idol. If you think about it, what I introduced is historical because it had never happened before, and it hasn't happened since - not on that level.

My mother's side of the family, they're from Montserrat in the Leeward Islands.

I don't know why everybody thinks I'm smooth. I think I'm just a pretty silly person, really.

I tell my son Corey that the greatest teacher is the teacher who says, 'Don't follow me; follow yourself. Because within you there is that kingdom, that life, that force.'

Acting, I started when I was six and a half years-old, on Broadway with Kurt Weill.

I love the Mexican muralists - like Rivera, Orozco - and the music of Walter Benton. They gave you a sense that reality was much more than life.

Jazz is very much a part of my life. I work with the Thelonious Monk Institute and do the artwork for their program every year.