A Quote by Billy Dee Williams

I think I've been very fortunate, considering the obstacles that I had to deal with, you know, just being - by virtue of being a brown, lovely, brown-skinned man. But on the other hand, I've been able to make a good living, and I've been able to take care of my family, which is most important to me.
I've never been able to shake the idea of family, which is to say I've never been able to shake my family. Being membered - being one limb of an immense grosser body - that's always been a fact to me.
My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that other people wouldn't have been able to do. But then again, we've also been able to live a normal life as well.
By the time 'Suits' had come around, I had been acting for maybe six years. 'Deal or No Deal' - I like to call it my very lucrative waitressing job. Most actors find a way to make a living while they're auditioning, and for me, holding a briefcase was an incredibly lucrative means of being able to pursue what I really wanted to do.
I did something that no brown-skinned man in the movie industry ever did. I made a brown-skinned man look very romantic - a matinee idol. If you think about it, what I introduced is historical because it had never happened before, and it hasn't happened since - not on that level.
I'm a product of state schools. I had a working-class family. We had no books. I was the first to go to college. But I didn't really think about it, or about making money. I was just going to be an artist, and I've been fortunate. I've never had to work for anybody nor have I had to write for money. Maybe that's another reason that I've been able to be productive. I haven't had to use my writing to make a living.
I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work - just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.
I have been very fortunate to have been able to make a living from what I love to do best - performing and singing for people.
I've been fortunate not to have been pigeonholed by virtue of being mixed-race, of being English and black, and by virtue of working all over the world. I've enjoyed a great degree of variety in the work that I've done. It's been quite unique.
I haven't been an actor who's been able to pick and choose roles, and being a family man, it's been about putting food on the table.
I feel really privileged that I've been able to be an activist and a musician for over 20 years now, and I've always been able to say whatever I want. I think that's something we Americans really take for granted, but it's a big deal, and it's not something most people in the world are able to do.
I have had lots of friends who've been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care.
I love a lot of the '70s singers: Pam Grier from the 'Foxy Brown' movie, Diana Ross, Tina Turner. They've always been able to embrace their hair, and they've never been afraid to take risks and go all out and make it thick and fun and a statement at the same time.
There is no 'off' being John Cena: it's always on. In a way, I think that has helped me, because over the years I have been able to be humble. I have been able to be humiliated in front of the WWE universe in a good way.
Being able to work on projects that I love and care about has been the greatest gift ever, and that's been a pretty recent thing in my life. But success for me at some point will probably be having a family.
The most important thing is that I'm in a position to take care of my family and take care of my moms, man. I can take care of myself now and my mom is able to just worry about herself and do what she wants to do.
Sarah Brown is a sweetie to work with. She's a good actress. She's gutsy and she comes in and she knows her lines. She's just terrific. Sometimes I forget how young she is, because she truly walked right in and took the territory and was able to hold her own with people who've been here for so many years. To be able to pull that off [for someone who had never been on a show], I really give the woman a lot of credit. She's done great.
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