Terrence Howard Quotes

If you're not going to do your job, get out of here. Don't mess up my work. This is how I feed my family.

If evolution works, why are monkeys still around?

All the things we have to remember, and I've mentioned this before, is that we're all artists.

I like women who look like me. Generally, you're attracted to women who look like you, because the most beautiful thing in nature is your own reflection.

But George Lucas is carrying about Black actors, about Black men, about Black history, which really incorporates and tells all of history. You can't take one race out without eliminating every other race if you're going to tell the story of the human race.

The only thing that really matters in the initial part of my career, the worst mistake I've ever made was try to do things to please the audience thinking how the audience is going to respond if I do this.

My future's about trying to be a better man

I want to be the condensation on the glass. I want to be that phenomenon that takes place between hot and cold.

Dating black women will ruin your life

In the Twenties, it wasn't a remarkable thing for a singer to be an actor, or even to be involved in politics. If this is our roots, how can you blame the branches for following the course of the roots.

There's also a part of me that's self-destructive, and another part that's a hero who's going to stand up for a principle.

I've always had a natural fear of the police, or abuse of their power

We call the Creator father, because we rely upon Him to protect us, guide us, feed us, keep us warm, to discipline us and all those things. I try to take my cue from the Creator, with regard to my children.

Sometimes the only way to make palatable that which is appalling and apprehensive is to season it with some humor.

Every one of us is an artist, and as an artist, you really can stroll into any venue that you want, as long as you take your time to learn the etiquette of that venue.

I'm damn near 37 years old, and I'm jumping up and down on the bed like my 10-year-old. I was a wild man

When you feel betrayed by someone that you trust the most... As an actor, you look for something that's going to let you express some of your inner emotions and anger.

We both can be the most beautiful and benevolent creatures on the planet, but then there's another side that can be as harsh and as ugly as the darkest thing you could imagine seeing.

There's no excuse to hit a woman... Ever. Not even in a movie role, because you might really like it. And then what?

My life's experiences, I've always had, my uncle used to call it antenna. I know what's going to happen oftentimes before it happened when it's involving me

And, so yeah, I'll always want to work in independent films because you're not forced into a category or a formula.

Toilet paper - and no baby wipes - in the bathroom. If they're using dry paper, they aren't washing all of themselves. It's just unclean. So if I go in a woman's house and see the toilet paper there, I'll explain this. And if she doesn't make the adjustment to baby wipes, I'll know she's not completely clean.

I am an engineer, but what I find important and necessary is that you just learn things as you go along.

I'm trying to make enough money where I can be financially independent and be able to go and just pursue that thing that everybody really needs, just pursue my family and the cause of my family

If we [black people] do not show up and support the march towards cinematic equality, the march towards being on a level at - we don't even have to be higher than whites, but to be viewed in the same common thread of this is a professional, these are stories that people are interested in, instead of being fed the same old BS dogma that's been fed and the studios have used.

You keep knocking on the devil's door long enough and sooner or later someone's gonna answer you.

I can't tell you if one day I'll be standing up there with an Oscar or directing, but I am going to be the best human being I possibly can

No, most of the decisions that I make with regard to taking roles, I just look for something that's challenging, something that I think I can accomplish, you know

They say everybody gets 15 minutes. I hope I'm just inside the first minute and the next 14 go really slow.

In every person we meet there's this little piece of God in them and that's who you talk to. And that's the only person that you allow to talk to you. When something else is speaking, you walk away from that. If it's not good, if it's not love, you walk away from it

So I show appreciation for the little gifts that have been handed to me.

You just drop a character like this that and the other and it's done.

The difference with Cleveland is that the racial tension was not a casual taste of it. It was outlandish.

If a relationship is built on sexuality, it won't last long.

I don't think President Obama has been that revolutionary in reaching out to ethnic communities. President Reagan did a lot for the black community that people don't realize.

As a child our dreams got scattered all about and all our future prospects got scattered to so many places, and we spend our lives trying to find the little pieces that make up our lives and make up the dreams that we had as a child that got blown away in the windstorm

My father always said that if you want oranges, you have to go to where the oranges grow.

The most important thing I can teach my kids is that you can't put your value in looks. Presence is based upon magnitude. You can pretend to have an air about you but it is quickly deflated, you cannot deflate presence. Presence walks into a room and surrounds and fills anything that's in that room without trying to demand it, it takes over. It can come from a smile. Like I said, love makes you beautiful. What is beautiful radiates.

The truth is, the personal ends up becoming part of your professional. As an actor, much of your work happens at home as you try things out on your family. Sometimes you stay in character unbeknownst to you and keep practicing.

I just wanted to be a scientist

There's a scripture in the Book of James which says, 'Become a doer of the word and not a hearer only.' A hearer is someone who looks into a mirror, walks away, and quickly forgets what sort of person he is.

When you hear buzz around the beehive, you know they're making honey in there.

I don't have any love for this business or the game or for acting. This is my day job.

I don't believe in premarital sex. It enabled me to date three or four women at the same time, because as long as I wasn't having sex with them, I could always just walk away.

Don't just view me as an actor.

I knew that one movie could either kill my career or give birth to it. It's the same thing with Nelson. If you fail at Nelson [movie about nelson Mandela], you don't get to comeback and say, 'Well, I was trying. Let me do it again.' There are no re-takes.

I found from working on the film that I am a bigot, at times. And that I am also a coward, at times.

Every artist has to grow, and has to challenge themselves with a new form of expression