Jamie Foxx Quotations

I went to college on a classical piano scholarship. My grandmother made me practice one full hour a day. Every day. Man. I thought all she wanted was for me not to have any fun. Next thing you know, you have a career in music. Now, not everybody's going to go on and be Mozart or Michael Jackson. But music makes you smarter.

It's so easy to play us guys that I hate to give away secrets to women because I know they'll use them. But OK, if you just simply don't give a guy the time of day, every once in awhile, it just makes us more like 'What do we do?' Men are developed to conquer. When we can't seem to conquer, we stay in it no matter what.

If I were an animal, I would be an eagle.

I'm a real person, and I'm angry. I'm trying to use this celebrity thing to get people some help. AIDS, poverty, racism - I want to be one of the hands that helps stop all that. I'll put it on my shoulders. I'll charge it to my account.

In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why not have something positive and stamp it with blackness?

If you look at how long the Earth has been here, we're living in the blink of an eye. So, whatever it is you want to do, you go out and do it.

As a kid, I was scared of losing my mind. In Terrell, Texas, where I grew up, there was a guy that would walk down the street talking to himself. And I used to watch him and feel uneasy. And there was a sanitarium where people would say, 'That's where all the crazy people go.' It really sort of frightened me.

Quentin Tarantino is a hip-hop artist. I told him, 'You're hip-hop!' You keep seeing surprises, and a clip here and there, because Quentin is hip-hop. A hip-hop artist will drop a single, leak something over here, and drop something over there 'cause he knows it's hot. He's on the spot with the way he does things.

I'm bad on Valentine's Day, but even worse on Christmas. I go shopping at nine o'clock on December 24th every year. Nobody else is there. I'm in Toys'R'Us all by myself. I get there five minutes before closing.

Guys don't adapt as well as women do to getting their heart broken for the first time. It's tragic. I really wanted to be in love, get married, have kids and buy a wood-paneled station wagon for the family. But it didn't work out, and, boy, it wrecked it!

When I was growing up in Terrell, Texas, I felt that it was not where I was supposed to be. I knew that I was meant for a different destination. I think that the minute I was born, there was something inside telling me where I would go, it's like energy - an intangible destiny.

She still talks to me now, only now she talks to me in my dreams. And I can't wait to go to sleep tonight because we have a lot to talk about. I love you.

Also, I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. If you take yourself so seriously, eventually you end up one of those people having a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on their lives. You see them drawing the curtains and they don't even realize that they've kind of drifted off somewhere.

I would say my grandmother would be like my personal god.

But don't get caught out there looking goofy. It's weird. When you do something that stinks, it's going to last forever on the Internet. There's always someone in the audience with a camera phone and if you're not 100%, you're going to be watching yourself on YouTube.

I remember meeting President Obama and looking at him, thinking, 'Damn, this dude is really our president. He really went out and did it!' If you look at stories like that, and other stories that I'm sure you could compare to, it's just about freeing your mind and taking those guards down.

As black folks we're always sensitive. As a black person it's always racial.

Give it up for Ray Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you, Ray Charles, for living.

Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you're flexing a different muscle, but it's beautiful because it is music.

My worst hair experience was when I was trying to relax my hair and my grandmother did it. It went all straight and I looked like a black Bee Gee.

I have about 20 to 25 platonic relationships with women all across the board from professional to artistic and they always give little clues on what they like.

That's what's great about the arts. Everything inspires you, and you get a chance to grow from watching other people and how they do their work.

Every two, three years there is a movie about the Holocaust because they want you to remember and they want you to be reminded of what it was. When was the last time you seen a movie about slavery?

Well, the album 'Intuition' is out and just went platinum officially. So I think to have the music doing what it's doing right now, man, it's the ultimate. Nobody is really selling records out there but we are at a million records and we dropped it at Christmas, so we are just trying to get that thing to like two million, you know.

I try to be as honest and open as I am with everything that I do because it's just, um, It helps me, you know, like whether it's stand up or singing or act. I just try to stay true.

Every single thing in my life is built around race.

What's weird is when you meet a girl who is 23 and you are talking to her, even her voice is high-pitched, she's young. You ask her how old she is, she says, 'Twenty-three, how old are you?' and when I tell her I'm 41 it's like I've just told her I have cancer. It's, 'Oh my God, how long have you had that?'

We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn't have a sort of influence. It does.

Man, after all my grandma put into me learning the piano, that was a hard day, telling her I was telling jokes for a living.

I never planned to win an Oscar. When I auditioned for 'Ray,' I was just thinking about what a great project it would be.

To be the leading man it's about the celebrity and the looks, and it's tough to do that. People who do it great are people like Tom Cruise and Will Smith - they're built for that. I ain't. I'm more of a character guy.

The most interesting thing about acting is when you go to the dark places, that's a lot of energy. When you go to the happiest places, it's also a lot of energy.

What we do in New Orleans, man - we party!

I've had to be a man since I was 12 or 13. I had a job. And I was playing the piano for people twice my age. Handling responsibility is what makes a man a man.

Now ballads, I can mess around and get up on somebody on a ballad. People ain't seen it yet, but I can mess around and get up in there. I've had Ruben Studdard up in my house, Brian McKnight, Tank. Every once in a while I throw down with them.

I think girls have to play a little hard to get because we come with so much bravado.

I love music. I've always wanted to do music, even when I started out as a comedian.

if I fail as Jamie Foxx, I'll just change my name and come back as something else.

Connecting with my daughter is the most important thing in my life - the priority. I want to be a man who shows up for her. I want to have such a big influence on her, so that she knows she can call me about anything, which she does.

Lil Wayne is a music god!!!!

You guys have so much energy. I threw a party in Toronto and there were, like, 4,000 people who couldn't get in.

When your movie is hot, your options are crazy.

When you sing R&B songs in front of an audience, you look out and there's 85% women. I think R&B music is sort of designed for a man singing to a woman. I don't sing it like the sexy thing, but sort of pseudo-sexy. We rally the women together because it's about being independent and things like that.

I play a slave. How black is that? I have to wear chains. How whack is that? But don’t worry. I get free. I save my wife and I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?

It's hard to be a celebrity nowadays. It's not about your track record anymore. If you have a great movie, you're good. If not, people are ready to write you off. I think the only ones who are really winning are people like Will Smith. People go, 'Oh, it's Will Smith. I've got to see him, whatever he's in.'

Being just an actor, sometimes people are like, "Hey, man, we don't wanna see you no more, in front of the camera," and I don't want that.

I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera. I can be behind the camera and really change things cinematically, and this is giving me an opportunity to do something behind the camera, which I really want to maximize.

In looking at Hollywood and its structure, the director controls the medium, and I want to be in control of certain things. I want to be able to get my own ideas and my own feelings out there, and the only way to do that is to be behind the camera.

I'd like to say I'm R&B's savior. Whether that's the truth or not, I'm definitely going out there with my mic and my shield to declare, 'I am here to save R&B.' I will have the people saying, 'Sir, there is a man at the musical gates saying he is here to save R&B.

When you're an actor or actress in this business, usually the natural progression is to direct, but a lot of times, we don't get a chance to get to it. Myself, I really want to get into it. I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera.

I'm a southern gentleman.

Will.i.am and I performed at Wango Tango. That's when my daughter said that I had made it in music.

My Grandmother would say, 'Make sure you look good. Make sure you speak well. Make sure you remain that Southern gentleman that I've taught you to be.'

I had that upbringing. Of watching 'Bonanza,' watching 'Hee Haw,' which both black and white would watch. I rode horses. I did gun spinning as a kid. I do these things.

I've been a sports fan all my life, and like most other actors, I'm convinced I could have been a pro athlete if Hollywood hadn't come calling.

Nobody wants to hear R&B. It's sad. If you want to be on the radio you got to stay young.

I think Prince should open up a little more to other artists. Just because we love Prince. Especially the old stuff - we love him to death. But if he opened up he would be something to deal with. Imagine Kanye West producing a Prince track? It would be banoodles!

Yeah, anytime anybody has a kid, you know how you feel when you have a kid, you look at the world differently because your kid's in the world now. When it's just you, whatever happens happens but now you pay more attention to political things. You pay more attention to things because your daughter or your son has to deal with these circumstances.

You have a responsibility to your work, to your choices. Once you get to a certain level of quality and commitment, you don't want to go back and make Booty Call 7.

My homies that are around me never give me that 'star pass.' I've hung out with some stars who are playing basketball and everyone let's them score all the baskets. Shooting pool, they let them make all the shots. My homies don't let me get away with that.

We can't wave a magic wand and get rid of any of these people's problems, but what they want is they want to be heard.

In L.A. you can hide. I can hide at the beach, hide up in the hills. [In Miami] everybody is looking at you.

And perfect happiness? Man, that's a... the pool is about 92 degrees, the Jacuzzi is about 102 and an avocado farm.

I am a comedian and you guys know whatever I say, I don't mean any of it.

I don't know if I'm built for marriage.

I really wanted to just be a musician. I didn't want to be anything else, but I was funny and all that.

I didn't have a knee-jerk reaction like some people did to the language and the violence. My stepfather was a history teacher at Lincoln High School in Dallas. So, I was already familiar with the N-word and the brutality of slavery. What I was drawn to was the love story between Django and Broomhilda and how he defends and gets the girl in the end. I thought it was just an amazing and courageous project.

You know what? I never really factor Hollywood into anything. I'm a black actor, so I can't really control what Hollywood thinks. I gotta go do my thing, and my jokes have got to be funny. Whatever I do has got to be great.

A lot of people may not know how competitive it is to play classical music, because when you think about it, the music that you're playing is music that's been here for years. And all you're trying to do is improve upon it when you play.

Then I was playing the piano at eight, and that helps you learn about women because most of the people I was playing for were women.

all of us feel special inside to where we feel as if we are the best, unique, or blessed. of course this is true, our error in this thought process is we forget that all the other people and all living things are just as special as we feel about ourselve.

Having a stage name is like having a Superman complex. I go into the telephone booth as Eric Bishop and come out as Jamie Foxx.

I wish I could take what I'm feeling right now and put it in the water system so everybody could drink it and we would all love each other.

I'd like to say I'm R&B's savior.

We can't retract the decisions we've made, we can only affect the decisions we're going to make from here.

You are what you repeatedly do when things get hard.

A woman's posterior is the key to my heart.

With 'Django Unchained,' when you're dealing with slavery, it's like a gymnastics routine with the highest amount of difficulty. Quentin Tarantino is not going to do a movie that's just going to lay there and be safe. There's going to be twists and flips.

It's like church over here. It's like church in here. First of all, give an honor to God and our Lord and Savior Barack Obama,

(I get to) kill all the white people... How great is that?

I want to thank my daughter, who told me, 'If you don't win, Dad, you're still good,' ... who taught me how to act.

Black people are the most talented people in the world,

Doc Rivers been hoarse since birth

Since we're at the Met, we've got some opera that we have to sing. So we're going to do a little hip hop opera. It's going to be off the hook.

Nobody wants to hear R&B. It's sad. If you want to be on the radio you got to stay young.

I'd like to say I'm R&B's savior. Whether that's the truth or not, I'm definitely going out there with my mic and my shield to declare, 'I am here to save R&B.' I will have the people saying, 'Sir, there is a man at the musical gates saying he is here to save R&B.'

I look forward to working with the NAACP in bringing immediate and ongoing aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina was a heart attack that revealed a long history of social illnesses. You can't be human and watch all these different things go down and not do anything, ... People from all over the world are looking at these images and saying, wow; we just really want to help. So at the end of the day it's all of us.

If I'm in the studio, I'm completely on music. I try to go to that place and that's the toughest thing for me to do. When I'm with other musicians, sometimes I go back to, almost like, childhood, because that's what I always wanted to be.

Give it up for Ray Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you, Ray Charles for living.

Fortunately now, I may not be doing 'Booty Call 2,'

I think that music is two things. It's either in the club or in the bedroom.

Stand-up is my heart and now I get a chance to do that and the music altogether. That's going to be great. I'm trying to be the Sammy Davis Jr. of 2005. I'm planning on going out with Cedric the Entertainer because he's got that musical bone, too.

Will.i.am and I performed at Wango Tango. That's when my daughter said that I had made it in music.

With the first album, the timing wasn't right and it wasn't a good situation. The situation is perfect now. The movie set everything up and people are more accepting now. The good thing is that it's not forced. If people dig the music, it will do well, and if they don't -- well, I won't do an album for another 10 years.

Three 6 Mafia was in the house, baby. That was beautiful. To me, it was one of the most genuine moments of happiness. ... There's was the most felt.

Yeah, the sitcom world is dead. It's all reality.

When I first shook Stanley Williams' hand, I knew that he was innocent and that we'd be connected until he was either executed or he died in San Quentin. I was disappointed by the way (court authorities) kept their distance because I don't think anybody wanted to get to know him. Once you did know him, you couldn't kill him.

When you sing R&B songs in front of an audience, you look out and there's 85% women. I think R&B music is sort of designed for a man singing to a woman. I don't sing it like the sexy thing, but sort of pseudo-sexy. We rally the women together because it's about being independent and things like that.

The reason you have to do this is you have to let them know that you're real.

When you look at Michael Jackson, there's nobody who loves him in that family, nobody. If they did, they'd tell him he didn't have to do all that in order to be famous. All he has to do is keep doing his music and be himself. Michael's been a little touched for about 20 years, but somebody needs to pull him aside and tell him they love him.