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Julie Andrews
Legend of Stage and Screen
Julie Andrews: When I was first asked if I would like to do Sound of Music, I was very thrilled to be asked and very glad that I was going to do the movie, but was a little careful about certain aspects of it because it was tremendously saccharine, on Broadway particularly, and it seemed to me that if we weren't careful with the real scenery and with everything else that was going into it, it could be horribly sugary. And, I certainly made every effort to make it more astringent and the great Christopher Plummer contributed so much in that respect. It was his performance that was the glue, the vinegar that held the film together. And, then Robert Wise, who was again an adorable man, our director, and he taught me a great deal about filmmaking because Mary Poppins was the first film I ever made, and then I made one called The Americanization of Emily, but by the time I got to Sound of Music I was probably getting full of a lot of little tricks and things that I didn't know I was doing, and Bob said, "Don't do that. Don't do that. Do that." And, I really learned a little bit more about filmmaking at that time.
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Maya Angelou
Poet and Historian
I don't think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop the modesty in a minute. You see, it's a learned affectation. But humility comes from inside out. Humility says there was someone before me, someone found the path, someone made the road before me, and I have the responsibility of making the road for someone who is yet to come. Dr. King was really humble so that he was accessible to everybody. The smallest child could come up to him, the most powerful person could come up to him, he never changed. If somebody very rich and very powerful said, "Dr. King, I want to speak to you," he was the same person to that person as he would be to one of you who is 16, 17, if you would say, "Dr. King " He was still accessible, gentle, powerful, humble.
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Maya Angelou
Poet and Historian
I will not sit in a group of black friends and hear racial pejoratives against whites. I will not hear "honky." I will not hear "Jap." I will not hear "kike." I will not hear "greaser." I will not hear "dago." I will not hear it. As soon as I hear it, I say, "Excuse me, I have to leave. Sorry." Or if it's in my home, I say, "You have to leave. I can't have that. That is poison, and I know it is poison, and you're smearing it on me. I will not have it." Now, it's not an easy thing. And one doesn't all of a sudden sort of blossom into somebody who's courageous enough to say that. But you do start little by little. And you sit in a room, and somebody says -- if you're all white, and somebody says, "Well, the niggers -- " You may not have the courage right then, but you say, "Whooh! My goodness! It's already eight o'clock. I have to go," and leave. Little by little, you develop courage. You sit in a room, and somebody says, "Well, you know what the Japs did then, and what they're doing now." Say, "Mm-hmm! I have to go. My goodness! It's already six o'clock." Leave. Continue to build the courage. Sooner or later, you'll be able to say out loud, "Just a minute. I defend that person. I will not have gay bashing, lesbian bashing. Not in my company. I will not do it."
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Maya Angelou
Poet and Historian
When we talk about racism, we have to see that we are not just talking about acts against blacks, we are talking about vulgarities against any human being because of her -- his -- race. This is vulgar. That is what it is, whether it is anti-Asian, whether it is the use of racial pejoratives about Jews, about Japanese, about Native Americans, about blacks, about Irish, it is stupid, because what it is really is it is poison. It poisons the spirit, the human spirit. I know there are blacks who say, "I can use the N-word because I mean it endearingly." I don't believe that. I believe it is vulgar and dangerous, given from any mouth to any ear. I know that if poison is in a vial which says P-O-I-S-O-N and has a skull and the cross bones, that it is poison. But if you pour the same thing into Bavarian crystal it is still poison. So I think racism is vulgar any way you cut it.
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Maya Angelou
Poet and Historian
Maya Angelou: There was a time when Malcolm espoused the belief that all whites were "blue-eyed devils." But he took his life in his own hands when he said, publicly, that he had been to Mecca, and there he saw blonde, blue-eyed men whom he could call brothers. He said, "So everybody, what I said was wrong." Now, that took an incredible amount of courage to say that, because after he said it, he didn't live very long. He was killed after he said that. But he did see it, and he said it. And that has to be -- I mean, one has to salute him.
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Robert Ballard
Discoverer of the Titanic
I had a chance to warm up to success. I had that ego thing that you go through of being on television and newspapers, and all of that sort of thing when the media has their meal with you. I had done that on a smaller scale. So, when this big thing came, I think I had a proper frame of mind about it. A lot of people who succeed, the ones that do it overnight, it can ruin them. But the ones that work at it for a long, long time, like some stars who get discovered after a 30-year career, they tend to handle it better than the people that are a star in their first movie. I'm thankful that I was prepared, as much as you could be, for something like that. It still was quite an experience, but I think I kept my feet on the ground through it all. You can't take it too seriously when the spotlight, to some degree arbitrarily, says "Now you are famous." You say, "Well I don't feel any different." The key is: don't act any different then.
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