121 Quotes by Harry Belafonte

The pursuit of justice is all I have ever known.

I'm not quite sure precisely when social and political activism became a visible brand of my DNA, but it seems to me that I was born into it. It is hard to be born into the experience in the world of poverty and not develop some instinct for survival and resistance to those things that oppress you.

If you want to look at the Monroe Doctrine and what happened when we wrote that, we stated what the business would be for America's power, especially in this hemisphere. We have always been the colonizer of this hemisphere, wherever we've been.

Poverty is terror. Having your Social Security threatened is terror. Having your livelihood as an elderly person slowly disappearing with no replenishment is terror.

When I was 20 and 30, my visions for what the world would be, all things were possible.

John Steinbeck is one of the most under-discussed and under-written-about of all American writers. He is way up there and should stand on a par, or even above, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

One of the true pleasures of my life has been the work of John Steinbeck. He was one of the people who turned my life around. I had no direct relationship with him, unfortunately.

All too often, I'm sorry to say, I relegated my family to the cracks and margins.

I think New York City most represents what it is that America in general aspires to. It's big; it's dense. I've known this city from all of its social arcs. The best that's in America is yet to come. The worst that's in America is yet to come.