In December I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can't afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

Goethe died in 1832. As you know Goethe was very active in science. In fact he did some very good scientific work in plant morphology and mineralogy. But he was quite bitter at the way in which many scientists refused to grant him a hearing because he was a poet and therefore they felt he couldn't be serious.

I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I'm not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect.

I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience no matter what religion or color of their skin or situation in life.

I think it's perfectly just to refuse service to anyone based on behavior but not based on race or religion.

There is no man more dangerous in a position of power than he who refuses to accept as a working truth the idea that all a man does should make for rightness and soundness that even the fixing of a tariff rate must be moral.

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

Acting is fun and I refuse to get involved in the semantics and the politics of strategy and breaking out of something or doing something because you need to do something else. For me it's all about what fuels my soul and if I'm passionate about a screenplay then that's what I'll do next.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.