Tavis Smiley Thinking Quotations

Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.

I still think in this country, and this might surprise you, the one thing that George Bush said as president that I do agree with, I love that phrase, 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I think that what started out as a European Union originally was probably a really wonderful and world-changing idea, the idea of a kind of cooperation and interdependence between countries. But the idea that individualization would work on common ground, not on conflict, not against each other, but to find how each benefitted from the other I thought was an incredibly hopeful and positive possibility.

I think the issue of women's choice is essential for a woman being able to have their lives - if they cannot control their own bodies by choosing if or when to have a child, then they cannot control their working life or anything around them.

We're all cracked vessels, and we're always in process, I think, every one of us.

I think when I stop fighting, I die in a sense.

There are enough bad films coming out of this town already without the process being more democratized. I'm a guy who loves democracy. I'm all for democratizing any process, but I think there is a price to pay for that.

I love the fight. I don't - it's not a negative, it's a positive, and I love the challenge. There's that little part of me that I love proving someone wrong in that way when they have an image of me or something, or they think they have me figured out or they think I'm a certain way.

I think, for most of us is that once you get to a certain place in your career you're not having to elbow and knock people around and audition for parts.

I feel like I've been successful after being done with the film is when I see it, if I'm embarrassed, if I'm slightly mortified, and if I feel super-vulnerable, I think I did something.