Latest Pam Grier Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I consider myself conscious of how women are treated, and sometimes I can be a feminist. Sometimes I'm a little Republican, sometimes I'm a little Democrat. Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm not angry. I'm not a total feminist, but I believe in rights for females. I believe that if we have to pay 100 percent for our college tuition, and then we get into the workplace and we're only given 70 percent of our counterparts' salaries, then we shouldn't have to pay but 70 percent of our college tuition. Maybe that'll stop the bullshit.

  Pam Grier

  Believe, College, Bullshit

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Me and my sisters were taught that if our eyes worked and our legs worked, we were beautiful. We had so many kids in our family that if we all got in front of the mirror and were ashamed of browns and golds and yellows and whites, and we believed what society told us - that the darker people were less attractive and the lighter ones were prettier - we would have had sibling murders. My family, being half-rural and half-military, just came from a different place.

  Pam Grier

  Beautiful, Sibling, Kids

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I tell young actresses today who are looking to get into films, "First of all, you are marginalized by the color of your skin." I tell actresses, "If you're too tall, if you're too fat, you're not going to work. I don't care how talented you are." It's a business, and sex sells. Sex, action, special effects, and violence sell. Yes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary.

  Pam Grier

  Art, Special, Skins

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I never went in thinking, "You're an African-American woman, so you're never going to win." I was just in career doing beauty pageants for the experience, and to show my brains and talent and help break stereotypes. It wasn't like, "Oh, I'll become a star. I'm beautiful." I never thought I was pretty. I couldn't even put on eyelashes or makeup. When you come from an environment that's military, and they don't stress that topic of aesthetics or beauty pageants and makeup, there are a lot of things you just don't have that city girls have.

  Pam Grier

  Beautiful, Girl, Stress

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I will not be on this planet. I may come back in another form, and you know, I'll come back as a white man.

  Pam Grier

  Men, White Man, May

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Everyone else can do violence. You know, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, they can all do shoot-'em-ups. Arnold Schwarzenegger can kill 10 people in one minute, and they don't call it "white exploitation." They win awards and get into all the magazines. But if black people do it, suddenly it's different than if a white person does it. People respond differently because people come from different places.

  Pam Grier

  Winning, Awards, White

  Source: www.avclub.com

• We have to have films about action and violence and special effects. That's the sad part, but you know what? It's not me doing it.

  Pam Grier

  Special, Violence, Action

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I ask you, how would you like your mom, your wife, your daughter to spend $100,000 to go to Harvard or some state school, and go out into the workplace, and you know she's great, and men are getting paid $200 per week more than her? Would that piss you off? What if you lost your job and you stay home crippled while she goes out, and she thinks she's going to get a good job, but someone male with the same level of experience and the same level of education gets paid more than her? You're going to get pissed. Until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes, I don't want to hear it.

  Pam Grier

  Mom, Daughter, Jobs

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I believe that if we have to pay 100 percent for our college tuition, and then we get into the workplace, and we're only given 70 percent of our counterparts' salaries, then we shouldn't have to pay but 70 percent of our college tuition. Maybe that'll stop the bullshit.

  Pam Grier

  Believe, College, Bullshit

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm not angry.

  Pam Grier

  Sometimes, Angry

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I'm not a total feminist, but I believe in rights for females.

  Pam Grier

  Believe, Rights, Feminist

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Sometimes I'm a little Republican, sometimes I'm a little Democrat.

  Pam Grier

  Littles, Sometimes, Republican

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I consider myself conscious of how we're treated, and sometimes I can be a feminist.

  Pam Grier

  Feminist, Sometimes, Self Conscious

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It's the best honor when someone wants to use as their professional title the name of a character that you portrayed.

  Pam Grier

  Character, Names, Honor

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Women were victims. Their husbands could beat them up when they wanted to. They couldn't work. They could be maimed and killed by their husbands.

  Pam Grier

  Husband, Victim, Beats

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Yes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary. You'll have Julia Roberts, you'll have Robert Redford, you'll have Russell Crowe doing those films, because if they're going to cost $90 million, they're going to make that movie for a public that's very large and mainstream. They're not going to make it for three or four million black people.

  Pam Grier

  Art, Yes You Can, Icons

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Sex, action, special effects, and violence sell.

  Pam Grier

  Sex, Special, Violence

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I tell actresses, "If you're too tall, if you're too fat, you're not going to work. I don't care how talented you are." It's a business, and sex sells.

  Pam Grier

  Sex, Care, Actresses

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Coming from the '50s, things were very violent. We were still being lynched. If I drove down through the South with my mother, I might not make it through one state without being bullied or harassed. I feel like unless you've been black for a week, you don't know.

  Pam Grier

  Mother, Black, Might

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I'm still trying to do films about black women.

  Pam Grier

  Black, Trying, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Coming from the '50s, things were very violent.

  Pam Grier

  Violent

  Source: www.avclub.com

• At the beginning, my ambition was never to break down doors. It was just to earn tuition for myself and work in an industry where women hadn't been allowed or invited. That's all I wanted to do, not thinking that I would make waves, change minds, excite people, incite people, turn on people, repulse people.

  Pam Grier

  Ambition, Thinking, Doors

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I was a child of the women's movement. Everything I had learned was from my mother and my grandmother, who both had a very pioneering spirit. They had to, because they had to change flat tires and paint the house - because, you know, the men didn't come home from the war or whatever else, so women had to do these things.

  Pam Grier

  Mother, Children, War

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Out of necessity comes genius.

  Pam Grier

  Genius

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You never know how people are going to respond.

  Pam Grier

  People, Know How, Knows

  Source: www.avclub.com