Top 50 Terrence Howard Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You keep knocking on the devil’s door long enough and sooner or later someone’s gonna answer you.”

— Terrence Howard

2. “My future’s about trying to be a better man.”

— Terrence Howard

3. “Dating black women will ruin your life.”

— Terrence Howard

4. “The purpose of my life is being a father to my kids and being a husband to my wife.”

— Terrence Howard

5. “I just wanted to be a scientist.”

— Terrence Howard

6. “In every person we meet there’s this little piece of God in them and that’s who you talk to. And that’s the only person that you allow to talk to you. When something else is speaking, you walk away from that. If it’s not good, if it’s not love, you walk away from it.”

— Terrence Howard

7. “There’s nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade. Some things have to be exposed.”

— Terrence Howard

8. “If evolution works, why are monkeys still around?”

— Terrence Howard

9. “If you’re not going to do your job, get out of here. Don’t mess up my work. This is how I feed my family.”

— Terrence Howard

10. “It’s just me and my guitar, and the rhythm’s from there, and the poetry of life.”

— Terrence Howard

11. “I’ve always had a natural fear of the police, or abuse of their power.”

— Terrence Howard

12. “When you hear buzz around the beehive, you know they’re making honey in there.”

— Terrence Howard

13. “We call the Creator father, because we rely upon Him to protect us, guide us, feed us, keep us warm, to discipline us and all those things. I try to take my cue from the Creator, with regard to my children.”

— Terrence Howard

14. “When you feel betrayed by someone that you trust the most, as an actor, you look for something that’s going to let you express some of your inner emotions and anger.”

— Terrence Howard

15. “I want to be the condensation on the glass. I want to be that phenomenon that takes place between hot and cold.”

— Terrence Howard

16. “There’s a scripture in the Book of James which says, ‘Become a doer of the word and not a hearer only.’ A hearer is someone who looks into a mirror, walks away, and quickly forgets what sort of person he is.”

— Terrence Howard

17. “I’m damn near 37 years old, and I’m jumping up and down on the bed like my 10-year-old. I was a wild man.”

— Terrence Howard

18. “I like to watch mankind in its futile attempt to understand the unknown, when they don’t even understand that which they know.”

— Terrence Howard

19. “Every little job becomes a dream, and you don’t recall it anymore, and maybe you might have a deja vu moment, but it’s like something you dreamed earlier.”

— Terrence Howard

20. “As a child our dreams got scattered all about and all our future prospects got scattered to so many places, and we spend our lives trying to find the little pieces that make up our lives and make up the dreams that we had as a child that got blown away in the windstorm.”

— Terrence Howard

21. “I like women who look like me. Generally, you’re attracted to women who look like you, because the most beautiful thing in nature is your own reflection.”

— Terrence Howard

22. “There’s also a part of me that’s self-destructive, and another part that’s a hero who’s going to stand up for a principle.”

— Terrence Howard

23. “But George Lucas is carrying about Black actors, about Black men, about Black history, which really incorporates and tells all of history. You can’t take one race out without eliminating every other race if you’re going to tell the story of the human race.”

— Terrence Howard

24. “And, so yeah, I’ll always want to work in independent films because you’re not forced into a category or a formula.”

— Terrence Howard

25. “My father always said that if you want oranges, you have to go to where the oranges grow.”

— Terrence Howard

26. “I can’t tell you if one day I’ll be standing up there with an Oscar or directing, but I am going to be the best human being I possibly can.”

— Terrence Howard

27. “If a relationship is built on sexuality, it won’t last long.”

— Terrence Howard

28. “They say everybody gets 15 minutes. I hope I’m just inside the first minute and the next 14 go really slow.”

— Terrence Howard

29. “The truth is, the personal ends up becoming part of your professional. As an actor, much of your work happens at home as you try things out on your family. Sometimes you stay in character unbeknownst to you and keep practicing.”

— Terrence Howard

30. “I’m trying to make enough money where I can be financially independent and be able to go and just pursue that thing that everybody really needs, just pursue my family and the cause of my family.”

— Terrence Howard

31. “We both can be the most beautiful and benevolent creatures on the planet, but then there’s another side that can be as harsh and as ugly as the darkest thing you could imagine seeing.”

— Terrence Howard

32. “The only thing that really matters in the initial part of my career, the worst mistake I’ve ever made was try to do things to please the audience thinking how the audience is going to respond if I do this.”

— Terrence Howard

33. “My life’s experiences, I’ve always had, my uncle used to call it antenna. I know what’s going to happen oftentimes before it happened when it’s involving me.”

— Terrence Howard

34. “Every one of us is an artist, and as an artist, you really can stroll into any venue that you want, as long as you take your time to learn the etiquette of that venue.”

— Terrence Howard

35. “I am an engineer, but what I find important and necessary is that you just learn things as you go along.”

— Terrence Howard

36. “I don’t think President Obama has been that revolutionary in reaching out to ethnic communities. President Reagan did a lot for the black community that people don’t realize.”

— Terrence Howard

37. “So I show appreciation for the little gifts that have been handed to me.”

— Terrence Howard

38. “All the things we have to remember, and I’ve mentioned this before, is that we’re all artists.”

— Terrence Howard

39. “I don’t have any love for this business or the game or for acting. This is my day job.”

— Terrence Howard

40. “Sometimes the only way to make palatable that which is appalling and apprehensive is to season it with some humor.”

— Terrence Howard

41. “The Oscar is the fantasy that you’re afraid to believe in, but in the secrecy of your little dark room, you dream and wait for it.”

— Terrence Howard

42. “The reason that I’m an actor, or an artist, is ultimately because I’m trying to paint a self-portrait, and the most complete and beautiful self-portrait that you can.”

— Terrence Howard

43. “Don’t just view me as an actor.”

— Terrence Howard

44. “In the Twenties, it wasn’t a remarkable thing for a singer to be an actor, or even to be involved in politics. If this is our roots, how can you blame the branches for following the course of the roots.”

— Terrence Howard

45. “The difference with Cleveland is that the racial tension was not a casual taste of it. It was outlandish.”

— Terrence Howard

46. “You just drop a character like this that and the other and it’s done.”

— Terrence Howard

47. “Every artist has to grow, and has to challenge themselves with a new form of expression.”

— Terrence Howard

48. “Every role you play is literally – and I’ve said this before – every single role that you play, the only way you can connect to that character is because that was a piece of you that was scattered around that yard, almost like we got caught up in some whirlwind.”

— Terrence Howard

49. “I found from working on the film that I am a bigot, at times. And that I am also a coward, at times.”

— Terrence Howard

50. “No, most of the decisions that I make with regard to taking roles, I just look for something that’s challenging, something that I think I can accomplish, you know.”

— Terrence Howard