Scenes from My Life Quotes

“Every addict, every alcoholic has a self-loathing; we bathe ourselves in that. It’s the way for the addiction to keep us on the ropes, keep us connected to the darkness. It fuels off of it.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Getting out only matters if you take your blessings, your hard-fought wisdom, your scarred humanity, and go back in.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“I once heard the saying I’ve never met a strong person with an easy past. Those who have been through the gauntlet survive for a reason.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“A man gotta live what he know, right? —Omar Little”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“By the time I entered high school, I already felt like damaged goods. Injured by my father’s absence, roughed-up by my mother’s hard love, and too meek to stand up for myself, I was a ripe target. After two men in positions of authority—one from school and one from church—molested me, I fell”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Everyone has art in them.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Show me a struggling man and I’ll show you a boy never given a chance to change.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“I remember the first lotion my mother ever put on my face was a bleaching cream called Artra, to lighten my skin. My defiance, my darkness, my weakness—they were all fodder for my mother. I learned to perform from an early age, imitating what I thought she wanted to see, hiding who I truly was. But it was never enough.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“I turned it on and—it was there. Oh shit, I started thinking, if I had lines, I think I could do this. I could act. I could be an actor. I changed my résumé and put “actor” up front: actor/model/dancer.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“I know we can’t be what we can’t see, so the more I could do to help them focus on the reality of their dreams, the more I was being of service to my kids.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“In January, then Democratic candidate for president, Sen. Barack Obama, gave an interview”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“I’m an addict who turned into an entertainer, so I haven’t been around. “I’ve been away,” I’d tell”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“I was still a child in my head, rebelling against my mom, saying fuck the world, making bad choices, hiding from what I didn’t want to face. And I was still teetering. “I’m not out of the woods, and it can all disappear if I keep at it,” I told them. “You don’t get too”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“many chances when you look like me.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“shoe going to drop? When are they going to find out you’re a phony? When are all your secrets going to be revealed? When are they going to turn on you? Will they love you when they know who you actually are?”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Cocaine was there when I was feeling good about the person I was pretending to be. Crack was there in my darker moments, when the seams started to rip, when I felt vulnerable and this voice would creep up on me, asking: When is the other”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Her voice is fierce but not hard. It’s optimistic, proud—declarative. It lands with authority, and I trust her because of that confidence.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“with a fifteen-year-old boy from Shreveport, Louisiana, named Marquawn. Marquawn had gotten into some legal trouble because of his sticky fingers, and a judge had put an ankle monitor on him. I took him around New York City while they filmed us for a day.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Three months earlier I shot an episode of Judge Hatchett, a court TV show that sometimes did a special episode where entertainers intervene in the lives of at-risk kids who’ve been through her court. Judge Hatchett contacted me to go on the show to meet”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“The night that would change my life began with me being too exhausted to move. That week I was in rehearsals for a dancing job with Izora Armstead, one half of the Weather Girls of “It’s Raining Men” fame. We were scheduled to leave for”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Everybody’s at war with different things. I’m at war with my own heart sometimes. —Tupac Shakur Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 2008 When I picked up the phone, I heard my mother struggling for breath.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“You can’t heal what you never reveal. I had put it away expecting it to vanish. But pain doesn’t work like that. It lingers. And when you don’t look at it, when you don’t let it out, it only gets stronger. And that’s how it takes you down.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“If you push something down, it’ll find its way out. You can’t run from it. Jay-Z says we can’t heal what we never reveal. And it’s true.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Don’t show up and then start to get ready. Come ready.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“is this guy?” he asked. “Go find him. He looks thugged-out enough to play my little brother.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“He had seen a picture of me at the production office and saw that I had a scar on my face. “Who”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Batman villain, the front of my face marked up like train tracks.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“there on the sidewalk. “You should feel lucky,” she said. That’s about the last thing I felt.”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“Otherwise, there’s no way on earth I could’ve afforded it. If the ER had stitched me up, I would’ve looked like a”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

“You gotta a little—a little touch in the face,” E said, gesturing to his own face. I put my hand to my cheek and forehead and felt the wetness there. It was an unseasonably warm night, so I first thought I had been sweating. But then I saw the dark liquid on my fingers. Under a streetlight, in a parked car’s side mirror, I saw it:”
― Michael K. Williams, Scenes from My Life: A Memoir