I wanted to be with the kind of people I'd grown up with, but you can't go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try.

We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life.

I had always loved John Ford's pictures. And I came to love him, too, but I was frightened to death working for him. He used the shock treatment while directing me.

We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.

I am somebody cause God don't make no junk

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.