All I really want to do is just keep acting, and some of it will stink, and some of it will be really good, and maybe when I'm 85 and presenting an Oscar like Bette Davis did, I can look back and say, 'It was okay, I did all right.'
— Whoopi Goldberg
If I was doing a talk show, I would do the kind of show that comes on just once a month, with amazing guests.
I think the idea that you know who your inner self is on a daily basis, because... you know. What's good for you 25 years ago may not be good for you now. So, to keep in touch with that, I think that's the first ingredient for success. Because if you're a successful human being, everything else is gravy, I think.
It bums me out tremendously what the church has become, and if it's got me bummed, imagine what Jesus Christ must be feeling.
Actors have no color. That's the art form.
Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.
If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of 20 million full-time volunteers.
I don't look like Halle Berry. But chances are she's going to end up looking like me.
I don't have pet peeves; I have whole kennels of irritation.
I am an artist, art has no color and no sex.
You know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.
Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.
I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That's exactly what I've done.
And I don't believe that I have to stay on one side of the fence or the other. I don't believe that there is any good career move or bad career move. I believe there are only the things that make me happy.
An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything.
I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?
I don't have to be bam, bam, bam, funny when I'm working. I can tell stories, and there's some funny in them.
We're born with success. It is only others who point out our failures, and what they attribute to us as failure.
I'm as American as Chevrolet.
I'm a big old egotistical baby and that's okay. I can accept it.
Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.
When I listen to these women, it makes what I thought were my hard knocks feel like little nudges.
I used my imagination to make the grass whatever color I wanted it to be.
Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine.
I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me.
When I started, I knew I didn't fit any visual that anyone was going to lie down and take their clothes off about. Work doesn't come to me; I go out and look for it.
It's being willing to walk away that gives you strength and power - if you're willing to accept the consequences of doing what you want to do.
For some reason, all artists have self-esteem issues.
I don't really view communism as a bad thing.
When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.
There are roles I am never considered for. Meryl Streep roles, let's say. Why not? I really wanted to do 'Ironweed,' for example, because the depression era in this country was one of the best for multiracial people, because everybody was poor. Everybody lived in the tents, and under buildings, and under gratings, together.
Everything for me is visual. That's just how my head works.
When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked.
My family is Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist and Catholic. I don't believe in man-made religions.
The Africans know I'm not an African. I'm an American.
I'm fighting the label of 'Black' actress simply because it's very limiting in people's eyes, especially people who are making movies.
That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in.
You've got to vote for someone. It's a shame, but it's got to be done.
I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.
The art of acting is to be other than what you are.
Things happen to you out of luck, and if you get to stick around it's because you're talented.
I grew up in a time when it would never have occurred to anyone to tell me there was anything I couldn't do.
Born ham, that's basically me.
Normal is in the eye of the beholder.
