Robin Williams

Okra is the closest thing to nylon I’ve ever eaten. It’s like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.

Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you are making too much money.

I believe I could do dance on ice, or play in a musical of Freud’s life called ‘It’s Your Mother’ – or maybe one for the symbolists: ‘Jung at Heart’. There’s always the one about India: ‘The Gandhi Man Can’.

Ah, yes, divorce … from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He’s like ‘We have to get rid of dictators,’ but he’s pretty much one himself.

Life isn’t just about you: It’s about family and friends and giving back.

A rivalry doesn’t happen in one or two races or in one year. It happens over a period of time to really get a rivalry going. We race together three or four races and get to beating on each other, that’s not a rivalry, that’s just a happening. You do that four or fives years, that’s a rivalry.

You have to be quite stupid to act.

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.

I think I’ve always been fine on stage – though I get nervous beforehand. But once I’m on stage, all of that goes out of the window.

The guys that don’t respect that history and tradition, I don’t think they’re going to be around all that long. And those guys who don’t know the history and tradition, I think it’s upon them to learn about it pretty quick if they want to be a success.

I don’t believe in perfection. I don’t think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.

But contrary to what some people seem to think, I was never a bully. I was just a hard man.

The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that’s not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it’s a power – not being yourself, and being in the role; it’s just like another prop.

I came into this industry and demanded more. I wanted more for female rappers. I wanted more for black women. I wanted to make more than what men were making. And I did it. I did it

I always used to develop a cold going into the studio.

I think a movie can inspire change, absolutely. Art, a book, a painting, a song, can definitely inspire change, whether it’s a small change or a big change but you know there’s novels I’ve read or a scene in a film that I’ve seen where I definitely inspired something and made a change or addressed an issue in my life or done something cliché like make a phone call. Absolutely, that’s the power of art you would call it because it inspires movement within yourself. You know it’s only really powerful when it reflects on you and you can relate to it or are moved by it in some way.

The mall is my life.

I couldn’t live without my music, man. Or me mum.

My father’s name is Vernon, and my mother liked the initials double V, so she named my sisters Victoria and Valerie. That’s cool- except when the dogs start getting V names.