Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by Whoopi Goldberg
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actress Whoopi Goldberg.
Last updated on April 22, 2025.
I don't have pet peeves; I have whole kennels of irritation.
The Africans know I'm not an African. I'm an American.
I'm as American as Chevrolet.
I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.
Everything for me is visual. That's just how my head works.
I grew up in a time when it would never have occurred to anyone to tell me there was anything I couldn't do.
An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything.
Normal is in the eye of the beholder.
Actors have no color. That's the art form.
It bums me out tremendously what the church has become, and if it's got me bummed, imagine what Jesus Christ must be feeling.
If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of 20 million full-time volunteers.
Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.
It's being willing to walk away that gives you strength and power - if you're willing to accept the consequences of doing what you want to do.
That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in.
When I started, I knew I didn't fit any visual that anyone was going to lie down and take their clothes off about. Work doesn't come to me; I go out and look for it.
I am an artist, art has no color and no sex.
And I don't believe that I have to stay on one side of the fence or the other. I don't believe that there is any good career move or bad career move. I believe there are only the things that make me happy.
If I was doing a talk show, I would do the kind of show that comes on just once a month, with amazing guests.
You've got to vote for someone. It's a shame, but it's got to be done.
You know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.
We're born with success. It is only others who point out our failures, and what they attribute to us as failure.
Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine.
I don't really view communism as a bad thing.
Things happen to you out of luck, and if you get to stick around it's because you're talented.
Born ham, that's basically me.
I'm a big old egotistical baby and that's okay. I can accept it.
When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked.
I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?
I think the idea that you know who your inner self is on a daily basis, because... you know. What's good for you 25 years ago may not be good for you now. So, to keep in touch with that, I think that's the first ingredient for success. Because if you're a successful human being, everything else is gravy, I think.
When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.
My family is Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist and Catholic. I don't believe in man-made religions.
When I listen to these women, it makes what I thought were my hard knocks feel like little nudges.
I'm fighting the label of 'Black' actress simply because it's very limiting in people's eyes, especially people who are making movies.
All I really want to do is just keep acting, and some of it will stink, and some of it will be really good, and maybe when I'm 85 and presenting an Oscar like Bette Davis did, I can look back and say, 'It was okay, I did all right.'
Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.
There are roles I am never considered for. Meryl Streep roles, let's say. Why not? I really wanted to do 'Ironweed,' for example, because the depression era in this country was one of the best for multiracial people, because everybody was poor. Everybody lived in the tents, and under buildings, and under gratings, together.
I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me.
I used my imagination to make the grass whatever color I wanted it to be.
I don't look like Halle Berry. But chances are she's going to end up looking like me.
I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That's exactly what I've done.
The art of acting is to be other than what you are.
For some reason, all artists have self-esteem issues.
Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.
I don't have to be bam, bam, bam, funny when I'm working. I can tell stories, and there's some funny in them.
I don't look like Halle Berry. But chances are, she's going to end up looking like me.
When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.
I've learned to take time for myself and to treat myself with a great deal of love and respect, because I like me.. I think I'm kind of cool.
Art and life are subjective. Not everybody's gonna dig what I dig, but I reserve the right to dig it.
If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.'
It you want to be somebody, If you want to go some where, you've got to wake up and pay attention
If you can handle the fact that people are going to be mad at you when you do what you think is right, you'll be alright.
It never occurs to me that there are things I can't do.
We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.
Children are a quality of life ... when our children are happy, then we are better as human beings.
If you don't look out for others, who will look out for you?
You have to believe in yourself in spite of what other people believe.
I fear waking up one morning and finding out my life was all for nothing. We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. When you're kind to someone in trouble, you hope they remember and are kind to someone else and so on. Soon it will be like a wildfire.
What I am is a humanist before anything - before I'm a Jew, before I'm black, before I'm a woman. And my beliefs are for the human race - they don't exclude anyone.
In the dark times, if you have something to hold on to, which is yourself, you'll survive.
Taking action is hard, but know what? Enduring a bad situation can be its own hell.
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