Cicely Quotes

You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die. ~ Cicely Saunders

When I told my mother that I wanted to be an actress, she said, you can't live here and do that, and so I moved out. I was determined to prove her wrong because she was so sure that I was going to go astray. And that's the juice that kept me going. ~ Cicely Tyson

I love a lot of these older actresses, like Cicely Tyson, who played Kunta Kinte's mother in 'Roots.' She was really great, and I like seeing her because every movie she plays, she plays a strong character. As a kid, she was really inspiring to me. ~ Keke Palmer

Cicely glances over at him. She looks a good kind of nervous when she should look a bad kind of scared. ~ Laura Bradley Rede

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it. ~ Cicely Tyson

So small, so blue, in grassy places / My flowers raise / Their tiny faces. ~ Cicely Mary Barker

Luke grabs my hand. I turn to see a look of pure horror on his face. "This," he says, "is a dance?" "You were expecting what?" I say. "Why are they not dancing?" I look around the gym again. "Well, most people are dancing." I nod at the freshman boys, who have resorted to doing the robot. "They're dancing." Luke looks completely unconvinced. "And the music," he says, "is it always this.....loud?" I laugh. "You sound like you're forty. You have been to a dance before, right?" Luke looks offended. "Yes. Of course. But it was more..." he surveys the gyrating bodies around us "....civilised that this." He turns to me accusatory. "And you. Have you been to a dance? ~ Laura Bradley Rede

Tis I whom children love the best; / My wealth is all for them; / For them is set each glossy cup / Upon each sturdy stem. ~ Cicely Mary Barker

The clock is ticking. I should be leaving right now. But what I want to do is take Cicely in my arms and press her up against me hard enough to make her not care that I'm messing up her lipstick. I want to pick her up and carry her back through that doorway. We're only a few strides from the couch, only one rip away from ruining that expensive fabric, the dress she must have bought to wear for him. ~ Laura Bradley Rede

The class, on the other hand, buzzed and hummed with the anticipated pleasure of writing it up, one day. They were vindicated. Miss Fox belonged after all in the normal world of their writings, the world of domestic violence, torture and shock-horror. They would write what they knew, what had happened to Cicely Fox, and it would be most satisfactorily therapeutic. ~ A.S. Byatt

Friday. Proposed to Cicely. Refused. ~ Georgette Heyer

She does her hair in an Afro like Cicely Tyson, that famous actress I seen on TV once, or Angela Davis, who I don't know exactly who she is but they say she's got guts and ain't scared of white people. ~ James McBride

These pieces, he already realised, were merely stepping stones at the start of a journey towards something - some grand artefact, either musical, or literary, or filmic, or perhaps a combination of all three - towards which he knew he was advancing, slowly but with a steady, inexorable tread. Something which would enshrine his feelings for Cicely, and which she would perhaps hear, or read, or see in ten or twenty years' time, and suddenly realize, on her pulse, that it was created for her, intended for her, and that of all the boys who had swarmed around her like so many drones at school, Benjamin had been, without her having the wit to notice it, by far the purest in heart, by far the most gifted and giving. On that day the awareness of all she had missed, all she had lost, would finally break upon her in an instant, and she would weep; weep for her foolishness, and of the love that might have been between them.

Of course, Benjamin could always just have spoken to her, gone up to her in the bus queue and asked her for a date. But this seemed to him, on the whole, the more satisfactory approach. ~ Jonathan Coe

I was in California when this journalist made a blanket statement about the fact that she did not think that black men and women had the kind of love relationship that Rebecca and Nathan had in Sounder. ~ Cicely Tyson

One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights. ~ Cicely Tyson

Sufering is only intolerable when nobody cares. One continually sees that faith in God and his care is made infinitely easier by faith in someone who has shown kindness and sympathy. ~ Cicely Saunders

All I have to do is find someone who has something to say that will enrich my life and they can't get rid of me ~ Cicely Tyson

My mother was an introvert and quite religious. And we were brought up in the church. And when she learned that I wanted to act, she simply said: 'You cannot live here and do that.' ~ Cicely Tyson

When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused. ~ Cicely Tyson

One lady told me that before she saw 'Sounder' she didn't believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people. ~ Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor. ~ Viola Davis

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. ~ Cicely Tyson

If each person in this world will simply take a small piece of this huge thing, this amazing quilt, and work it regardless of the color of the yarn, we will have harmony on this planet. ~ Cicely Tyson

I started off in drama, and there are so many women that I admire. Women in this industry are gladiators. Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Taraji Henson, Regina Hall, Regina King. ~ Bresha Webb

We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them? ~ Cicely Tyson

Ali ... we should have gone to see that movie. Malcolm X was another one. ~ Cicely Tyson

I starred in a Broadway play that was Sidney Poitier's first directing job and the cast was Lou Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ladd and I played a Jewish kid who offered himself as a slave to two Columbia University students as reparations. ~ David Steinberg

Whatever good I have accomplished as an actress I believe came in direct proportion to my efforts to portray black women who have made positive contributions to my heritage. ~ Cicely Tyson

How people die remains in the memory of those who live on ~ Cicely Saunders

Best and dearest flower that grows, / Perfect both to see and smell; / Words can never, never tell / Half the beauty of a Rose - . ~ Cicely Mary Barker

There wouldn't be a Halle Berry or an Angela Bassett or a Cicely Tyson if there hadn't been a Lena Horne. ~ Dee Dee Bridgewater

In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform. ~ Cicely Tyson

The choices of roles I made had to do with educating and entertaining. And as a result I found myself working only every two or three years. ~ Cicely Tyson

The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat. ~ Cicely Tyson

Approaches to death and dying reveal much of the attitude of society as a whole to the individuals who compose it. The development of ideas of what constitutes a good death can even be traced to prehistory. ~ Cicely Saunders

I know I shouldn't turn to look at Cicely, no matter how much I want to. So I don't. But I can't stop myself from looking in the rearview mirror, as if looking at her indirectly will help somehow, like looking at an eclipse. ~ Laura Bradley Rede