Ruby Dee

You just try to do everything that comes up. Get up an hour earlier, stay up an hour later, make the time.…

— Ruby Dee

I'm an actor who appreciates direction.

— Ruby Dee

I have this deep love for authors. I think that we don't do enough to encourage love of words and love of…

— Ruby Dee

Before I latched onto the concept of stereotypes, not once did I reckon with the fact that I would never be a…

— Ruby Dee

I really don't believe in retiring as long as you can breathe.

— Ruby Dee

You have to learn how to be married. You have to learn to love somebody.

— Ruby Dee

You can only appreciate freedom when you find yourself in a position to fight for someone else's freedom and not worry about…

— Ruby Dee

I never thought about myself as an activist when we were coming along. I wasn't a joiner. You know, I love the…

— Ruby Dee

I don't remember, as a child, feeling a lack of anything.

— Ruby Dee

God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.

— Ruby Dee

A nation's youths shouldn't be sent off to die.

— Ruby Dee

I don't know who I would be if I weren't this child from Harlem, this woman from Harlem. It's in me so…

— Ruby Dee

Spike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love,…

— Ruby Dee

My mother - my stepmother, really, she herself have been what they call an elocutionist. And she was the one who first…

— Ruby Dee

When I was young, I dreamt of being a starlet in Hollywood. But there comes a point in every African American's life…

— Ruby Dee

I respect the fact that a director has studied the text and the road map of work before us, the subtleties, interconnections,…

— Ruby Dee

Life can't die. It's a contradiction.

— Ruby Dee

Well, I didn't grow up with that word 'retirement' as part of my consciousness. I didn't grow up with professionals that retired.…

— Ruby Dee

I don't want to have my children have to get dressed up to go out to say good morning and deserve to…

— Ruby Dee

I don't think the arts would have been as meaningful to me if I hadn't grown up in Harlem.

— Ruby Dee

I shined shoes; I did windows.

— Ruby Dee

My stepmother wanted to be an actress.

— Ruby Dee

Sorrow for not understanding like I understand now the unpredictable, profound journey that marriage is.

— Ruby Dee

I'd come from a background in New York of picketing and protesting.

— Ruby Dee

I learned that having great sensitivity is important. But being strong is just as important.

— Ruby Dee