Cursed be the ground for our sake. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for us. For out of the ground we were taken, for the dust we are and to the dust we shall return.

Denzel Washington: I like the collaboration, I like seeing people do well, so I really plan to direct the rest of my days.

You can’t break me because you didn’t make me.

Even though the story [Fences] is set during the 1950s, some contemporary women might have trouble understanding her decision.

You don't know when you're being watched. That's one of the weird things about celebrity. It's my least favorite part of acting, celebrity.

In 2009, Scott Rudin sent me August's [Wilson] original screenplay [Fences] and asked me what I wanted to do with it. He wanted to know if I wanted to act in it, direct it or produce it. I said, "Well, let me read it first."

As an actor in the theater you're taught that you never play a bad guy. You have to love who you are. You can't say, "Oh, I'm a bad guy." How do you play that?