You never know what's going on in someone's life. You never know what's really going on behind what they present.
Hill Harper
The word 'courage,' one of my favorite words, the root or the etymology of that word is 'cour,' which means heart. I think true courage is actually following your heart and not getting or succumbing to what other people's definition of what your life should be. Live your life.
Once you have a felony conviction on your record, one of the most difficult things to do is to break the cycle of recidivism.
Fundamentally, we all want the same thing. We want to love. We want to be loved, and we want to matter.
My first two books, 'Letters to a Young Brother' and 'Letters to a Young Sister,' were... distributed pretty widely. Judges in juvenile justice facilities started citing the book as required reading.
The most impactful place that I've been to where I was just completely awestruck, happy, moved is Victoria Falls between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is probably the most beautiful and romantic place in the world.
I believe we all have the capacity to be masters of many things, and there's nothing that we can't do. You can be a great actor and also be a great writer. There's so many things that all of us have the capacity to do. But somehow, life tries to convince us that we'd be lucky to do even one thing well, and I disagree.
Many of us are in are in our own prisons that aren't made of iron bars.
We all have choices we have to make, and with those choices come certain sacrifices.
You deserve a great life. I want to see you become unreasonably happy. And you can. And you will.
I champion the idea of being more conscious. I call it being an active architect of your own life. Building your life like an architect builds a structure.
All work and no play make any forensic pathologist a dull boy.
Being a celebrity doesn't have an iota of value when you're looking death in the eye.
There are so many actors that I meet that don't act enough. Definitely take class, definitely train - that's the most important thing you do. Build your craft. Become better.
There will always be crazy things that happen in our lives, but love is the central connector. If we commit to love and partnership, the other stuff doesn't matter.
My father passed from cancer in 2000; his brother died of cancer before that. My grandfather died of cancer.
I love being athletic and doing things that are active, even when I'm traveling.
Dr. King said, 'We are all tied together in a garment of mutual destiny.' Which says to me no matter how well I may be doing in Hollywood, if a young brother or sister in Louisiana, the South Bronx, the South Side of Chicago, South Central Los Angeles - is not doing well, then I'm not doing very well.
We all have inherited so many types of fears, whether they're race-based, culture-based, gender-based, age-based, family-based. And then we get comfortable with these fears.
You can't build anything with a flimsy foundation. Friendship is the foundation.
What's interesting is with a lot of the work I do through my foundation, the 'Manifest Your Destiny' foundation, we really encourage people, and we attempt to empower, uplift and inspire people to live out their dreams, live out their destiny.
I'm not the biggest star in the world, but I do have a platform, and if I can use that platform to help somebody else, why wouldn't I?
When I was dealing with cancer, I was working on a book about finances. I realized that the same methodology that the doctors were using to cure me, you could use to cure your finances. Health and wealth are so linked, it's amazing.
Poverty existed before January 20, 2008, OK? Before President Obama took office.
Men and women can absolutely be friends, and that's what we need to be. Part of the problem is that we aren't friends enough. Our relationships are negotiations, and that is not friendship.
I've been trying to make a difference as an actor. I want to play characters that move people, have them look at their lives differently, or give them an escape.
I've gotten a firsthand view at the destruction that black men and black women not being able to stay and build healthy relationships has had on the black family and black children.
If you have a debt issue or credit card issue, start dealing with it. If you have a tax issue, don't just say, 'I'm not going to file.' There are ways to deal with these things, but you must communicate with your creditors, whether it's a credit card company or tax department.
My friend is a former race car driver, so he races for Mercedes, and I root for him. I have a car that I love to race, I'll take it to the track.
My favorite vacation spot is a beautiful beach. I've been to many, many beaches on many continents: Mombasa, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Barbados, Mexico and the U.S. What's beautiful about beach communities is for whatever reason, they feel like vacation to me.
On the male side of my family, cancer has been very insidious, and so I'm just attempting to live a lifestyle that doesn't follow in their footsteps.
I think, without question, the way someone plays sports shows something about inherently who they are, you know?
Screening for colon cancer can stop cancer in its tracks.
My father, obviously, and my mother were inspirations. My uncle, Frank Harper, he was an absolute mentor for me.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a partner and doing the things to have one. To protect ourselves, we have to say, 'I don't need one.'
The real important things are kindness and a sense of humor. I've been fortunate to have dated and could have easily married women who have those qualities, and time and circumstances didn't work out. Timing plays a big part.
Whatever your calling is as a service, follow it - that's beautiful.
I'm not excusing crime or those who bring poison into the community, but I do want brothers and sisters in prison to know someone cares.
Even when you're out with someone, you need to get out of your head. And you can try exercises by putting yourself in situations where you may not feel completely comfortable, like going to a gallery opening on your own.
Many of us are walking around living smaller lives than we're meant to live. Don't allow yourself to dream smaller than you were meant to dream.
The media is convincing people that if you have that 'next thing,' that diamond, the right car, then you'd be happier.
What I've found in doing research is that men want a relationship that feels fun. In other words, they want a relationship that has qualities or elements of their same-sex relationships - just like women do, too.
I studied theater in college, and I absolutely knew that I loved acting, and I knew that I loved theater.
In acting class, teachers talk about how the 'givens' of a situation help define a character.
With my first book, 'A Letter to a Young Brother,' I figured it would be my only book I was ever going to write. What happened with that is a lot of young men would reach out to me.
Since I'm in the entertainment business, I think I have to hold a mirror up to myself and say, 'Am I complicit in miseducating and misinforming our youth by participating in this business, or can I use this business to re-educate and uplift?'
My parents both are physicians, and my grandfathers were both physicians.
It's important for someone like me - who's known Obama for 20 years - to speak the truth. I know him to be a Christian man. I know him to be one of the greatest patriots.
People are afraid of an unorganized, wasteful government.
The thing about our country, Americans, and New Yorkers in particular, we all want to help. There's real folks who want to help. The problem is, they don't know how. They don't know how to get involved.
