“The only thing that seemed to me I could do in such a way that no one ...” — Marcia Gay Harden Quote

“The only thing that seemed to me I could do in such a way that no one else could was acting. I thought, I can be a doctor, but there's going to be someone else who is just as good or better. I can be a lawyer, which I still sometimes think I would love to be, but I think there's someone who can do it just as good or better.”

“Harlem is a very family-oriented neighborhood, and it always has been.”

“Shakespeare set a lot of his dramas in a historical perspective or war perspective, or he would study what was going on at that time.”

“I was always an exhibitionist. I liked it when everyone laughed. But I didn't do plays in high school. I was too nervous.”

“My schools were quite diverse - those who serve their country come from every race and religion - and so the military schools I attended were a wonderful melting pot.”

“Everybody says 'Good Morning' in Harlem because it's true! And that's lovely.”

“Boulez seemed to me to be a guy who wrote laws. Like a company lawyer.”

“I wanted to be a writer, and my mother was like, 'No, why don't you become a lawyer?' That sort of thing.”

“For me, being a lawyer means to help those in need.”

“I would tell people my dad was all the characters he's played in movies, because once you say he's a lawyer or something, they move on.”

“Actually, acting turned out to be the perfect job for me, because I had a lot of different interests. I thought about being a priest at one point. I thought about being a teacher. I thought about being a lawyer. But I think acting is probably the best job for me.”

“I'm low key at times and really learning as a political figure to give more - show more of myself and be less buttoned down, which I was when I was a lawyer and I was when I was a federal regulator.”