Cicely Tyson Quotes

"When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going."
- Cicely Tyson
(Related: Mother, Wrong)

"We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them?"
- Cicely Tyson
(Related: Support)

"In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform."
- Cicely Tyson
(Related: Being, Career, Luxury, Years)

"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch-what make you go beyond the norm."
- Cicely Tyson

"I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it."
- Cicely Tyson
(Related: Life, Work, Nothing, Want, Will)

"I don't condemn anyone for making their choices. If someone chooses those roles, fine. But not for me. When someone stops me and says, You're the reason I became an actress, that lets me know I made the right decision."
- Cicely Tyson
(Related: Decision, Choices, Reason, Right)

"I was in California when this journalist made a blanket statement about the fact that she did not think that black men and women had the kind of love relationship that Rebecca and Nathan had in Sounder."
- Cicely Tyson
(Related: Love, Men, Women, Fact)

"Ali... we should have gone to see that movie. Malcolm X was another one."
- Cicely Tyson

"You never know what motivates you."
- Cicely Tyson