I knew real show business from my father, who had been an actor since he left the world of boxing. – James Earl Jones
Even during the rationing period, during World War II, we didn’t have the anxiety that we’d starve, because we grew our own potatoes, you know? And our own hogs, and our own cows and stuff, you know. – James Earl Jones
I think self-criticism is sort of a given when you’re an actor. It’s also about being curious and not being flippant. Anyone who accepts being in this noble profession is automatically self-critical. – James Earl Jones
People who lusted after Marilyn Monroe had no idea she stuttered. It is the secret of her sexiness, actually. – James Earl Jones
You weren’t going to the theater to change the world, but you had a chance to affect the world, the thinking and the feelings of the world. – James Earl Jones
So I was determined to use my last two years in college doing something I thought I would enjoy, which was acting. And it was probably because there was girls over in the drama school too, you know? – James Earl Jones
The arts have always been an important ingredient to the health of a nation, but we haven’t gotten there yet. – James Earl Jones
More and more, when I single out the person out who inspired me most, I go back to my grandfather. – James Earl Jones
My grandmother though, began to prepare in her own neurotic – and I think psychotic – way to face racism. So she taught us to be racist, which is something I had to undo later when I got to Michigan, you know. – James Earl Jones
So by the time I got to Michigan I was a stutterer. I couldn’t talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year and then those mute years continued until I got to high school. – James Earl Jones
I got out of the Army – in my world – I came to New York, for instance, when the civil rights movement was just beginning, and that created a certain energy, a certain rumble, a certain impetus for black actors. – James Earl Jones
The goal wasn’t to be a millionaire or to be a Hollywood star. That was not the goal. The goal was something about – the goal was to find the goal, but I knew where it was. – James Earl Jones
I think the extent to which I have any balance at all, any mental balance, is because of being a farm kid and being raised in those isolated rural areas. – James Earl Jones
I happened to happened to land in a time, in the middle ’60s, that without knowing it, and without being told by the history of theater – which we now see from a historical point of view was an explosive time. – James Earl Jones
It has to be real, and I think a lot of the problems we have as a society is because we don’t acknowledge that family is important, and it has to be people who are present, you know, and mothers and fathers, both are not present enough with children. – James Earl Jones
My grandmother had the most dramatic effect on my life because she set me in one direction, and I had to go back the other direction for my sanity, and for my ability to be a social human being. – James Earl Jones
And it was the idea that you can do a play – like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever – and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life. – James Earl Jones
I love to see actors’ work. I love to surf channels late at night and accidentally run into movies I hadn’t seen before. It makes me very proud of the profession. – James Earl Jones
I think stutterers are funny. And I know it’s rude and politically incorrect to laugh at stutterers. But I think it is okay because I know why they’re funny. They make people nervous. People think, when on earth are they going to get the word out, so they start laughing out of their own nervousness. – James Earl Jones
One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter. – James Earl Jones