Denzel Washington Thinking Quotations

Where I think the most work needs to be done is behind the camera, not in front of it.

I've worked in a factory. I was a garbage man. I worked in a post office. It's not that long ago. I like to think that I'm just a regular guy.

I played Othello, but I didn't sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn't do me any good.

I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.

Don't get all sentimental on me, Makes me think I'm gonna die.

I'm selfish, I think. I think an artist has to be. I'm not worried about what people think. I play the parts that I find interesting. It'd bother me more to be just pigeonholed into doing what people think is ethical or that's boring to me. I don't pick parts with that in mind, I just find interesting stories. If it's interesting to me, then I do it.

I think that if there can be considered racism it's to do with the lack of opportunities for writers and producers and the people behind the camera.

I think we're fascinated by gangsters and that whole lifestyle and crossing the line. We get sort of stuck in our normal lives, if you will, and you want to be bigger than life and I think people somehow live through these sorts of characters.

We've all had some level of injustice, whether 20 years in prison, or 20 minutes sitting in your car waiting for a police officer to determine your future. Or even a few moments in an elevator with some woman clutching her purse thinking you're going to rob her ¾ regardless of celebrity, that has happened to me.

My mother used to tell me: "You gotta smile more. Because if you don't smile, the way you look at people, they'll think you're mad at them."

I try not to think about that [getting Oscar] ahead of time. You just try to do the best work you can, and then you get the movie out there, and we've been hearing good things. But you never know, you don't want to get too high, and you don't want to get too low.

I always think it's not what we know that's terrifying; it's what we don't know. That's sort of pervasive with everything in life.