I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.
One of the issues I kept saying to my students is you have to learn to interrupt. When you raise your hand at a meeting, by the time they get to you, the point is not germane. So the bottom line is active listening. If you are going to interrupt, you look for opportunities. You have to know what you're talking about.
So, I'm lying on the couch and Laura walks in and I say, 'Free at last,' and she says 'You're free all right, you're free to do the dishes.' So I say, 'You're talking to the former president, baby,' and she said, 'consider this your new domestic policy agenda.'
I'm like a middle-aged person; when my friends go on about modern bands, I don't know what they are talking about. I'm into rock n' roll, like Jimi Hendrix. Not so much because of my parents, who used to play a lot of Nina Simone and older blues, but my brother and sister.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about.
People have come to me for my opinion since 'October Baby.' But, hey, look, I'm an actor who is very fortunate to be in a movie that's making wonderful noise, and hopefully helping parents and children to be a little closer. Leave me alone. I'm not talking about politics. I'm just trying to have a conversation with my own kids.
All I can do is keep working, keep auditioning, keep talking to people - and whatever it takes to show other colors.
Onstage, I find absolutely nothing but exhilaration in not talking.
For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo. It means talking to and spending time with kids not like them so that they may discover those kids are in fact just like them.