James Earl Jones

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

James Earl Jones (January 17, 1931 – September 9, 2024) was an American actor known for his roles in film and theater. He was one of the few performers to achieve the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony). Jones was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985, and honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2009, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2011.

Quotes

• If you live in an oppressive society, you've got to be resilient. You can't let each little thing crush you. You have take every encounter and make yourself larger, rather than allow yourself to be diminished by it.
  • As quoted in One Million Strong: A Photographic Tribute of the Million Man March (1996) by Roderick Terry

Voices and Silences (1993; 2002)

Voices and Silences (1993) co-written with Penelope Niven; also 2nd edition Voices and Silences: With a New Epilogue (2002)

• I have never traveled to anyone else's drumbeat. Some people have called me a rebel. I qualify as one. A lot of it is inadvertent, unintentional, not a gesture at all, just me, just the nature of myself, finding my own drumbeat.
  • p. 357 (2002 edition)

• One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.
  • p. 357 (2002 edition)

• When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.
  • p. 373

External links

• James Earl Jones on IMDb