I do believe that for me, my own personal journey has been one in which my voice has also been appreciated.

On Twitter, there’ll be fans of ‘Army Wives‘ and people who say, ‘I’ve been following you since ‘Supernatural,’ I loved you on ‘Person of Interest,” and it’s really cool to get that love. To them, I’m not just an overnight success.

I don’t want to be a flash in the pan. I don’t want people to just remember me for one thing.

It’s one thing to entertain, to educate, but to edify, to lift people up, that’s – to God be the glory.

Muhammad Ali was the greatest of all time. But what made him even greater was what he did outside the ring.

I see my friends and family who have a passion or a dream, but it’s now a dream deferred because they were never naive enough or brazen enough to say, ‘Let me do this.’

The first time I went on a serious run was when I was 21 years old at Stanford University. From 21 to 30, I continued the tradition and ran 10 miles every year on my birthday.

I’m pleased it turned out the way that it did, because I know lots of other people who did fantastic work and did not see this particular kind of recognition [like Emmy].

We’re all trying to figure out what’s next, what’s best for our families, what’s best for ourselves, and there’s a certain sort of comfort in knowing that you’re not in it by yourself.

Always have an attitude of gratitude.

One of my favorite things to do, when the ghost light is on and it’s just an empty stage – I’ll let my shadow spread right across the theater, and I just say to myself, ‘For the next few hours, these folks are my responsibility. I get to share in something that is unique.’ It’s like church.

I’m very cognizant of the image that’s being put out there and the way in which people perceive me. I’m honored and flattered that they see me as being a decent human being. I try my best to be a decent human being, but I fall short of the mark like we all do on a regular basis.

Every character I play is me.

I catch myself every once in a while doing that weird thing that I see famous people do, where they have sunglasses and hats on and grow out beards thinking that they’re fooling people. Dude, you’re not fooling anyone: you look just like you.

I’ve spent so much of my career working intermittently, being busy and then with large swaths of time off, that it became the norm.

There’s something frightening that comes with freedom. And there was something very frightening for a lot of slaves once they were free and were going through Reconstruction. It was like, what do you do now? There was nothing set up.

I always thought that I would just be working in obscurity in perpetuity.

If you haven‘t done shows that are on everyone‘s radar, then you’re something out of nowhere.

I’ve always told my wife, ‘Anytime I have an opportunity to be on something that I would watch even if I wasn’t on it, that’s when I get really, really giddy.’

You can’t play someone and judge them at the same time.

I can’t let other people dictate how I see myself.

There’s a time when it was an event for a black person to be on television. Where black households would gather around, ‘Oh, you know, Sammy Davis is going to be on ‘All in the Family’ tonight! Let’s go check it out!’ It was a big, big thing.

I don’t want to try to fool people into thinking that I’m something that I’m not.

Johnnie Cochran was such a heroic figure for getting the acquittal of O.J. Simpson, and the acquittal was such a historical event because it was the first time that I’d seen somebody who looked like me have the criminal justice system work in their favor rather than against.

My family did a lot of road trips across these continental United States when I was a kid. Twenty or so of us would caravan in four or five vehicles and hit every corner of the connected 48.

My dad passed away when I was 10.

When I walked up on stage at the Emmys, and when people stood up, it was a really sort of emotional, overwhelming moment. It was like I had been accepted.

I remember the great work that Norman Lear did. That was an incredible heyday to be a black actor.

You can take your play seriously as long as you seriously play.

I was at Stanford University up in the West Coast Bay Area, so the biggest song of my freshman year was ‘I Got 5 on It’ by Luniz, and the ‘I Got 5 on It’ remix was the joint that everybody was jamming constantly. And then it was also at that particular time that I became a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan.

I’m a spiritual person. I do believe in a higher power. I believe God placed me on this planet to be a beneficial presence.

I have a big family of big people.

I think what Hollywood is learning at large is that there is profitability in stories that are culturally specific and that you can only address the universal through the specific.

Understand what you want, and want it as badly as you can. Make the stakes for yourself as life-or-death as you can.

I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and now my kids are growing up in Los Angeles, so that’s culturally very different.

I never assume people are going to recognize me.

The beauty of theater is that you get to live the character from beginning to end without stopping. The natural momentum of the story propels you through in such a way that feels organic.

After six months of playing Chris Darden, it’s very hard for me to separate my views from his.

If I can do quality work with wonderful writers and directors and producers… that’s the cherry on top.

My mom, who is a very strong Christian woman, will often ask me how some of the characters I play glorify God. Her meaning is that she feels as if every character should be a good Christian character, which is not necessarily my interpretation.

My work schedule doesn’t always accommodate my workout schedule, but I make do with what time I’ve got.

[ This Is Us] is a character-driven dramedy, in which you will laugh. You may have to pull out your tissue box from time-to-time. But it will sort of reaffirm your desire to move forward in life. It’s a very hopeful show.

Running gives me the confidence to be at my peak throughout the rest of my day.

Dialect or the speech of the people is capable of expressing whatever the people are.

When I got into Stanford in high school, I had some friends from school who told me that I just got in because I was black and whatnot.

My wife and I will often have conversations about ‘Good Times‘ and ‘The Jeffersons’ and ‘Sanford and Son.’ They were doing incredible stuff that was very funny but also very socially conscious.

I go to grad school at NYU, and I learn all these things about speech and voice and games. It’s like camp for an actor, and I got a chance to immerse myself 12 to 14 hours a day in what I love.

It’s always the case that the minority has to navigate two different worlds. Women have to know how to live in a man‘s world. Gay people have to know how to live in a straight world. Black people gotta know how to live in a predominantly white world.

I like working. I think being on set is one of my favorite places in the world.

Life has to be everything. It can’t be all sad. It can’t be all peaches and cream. Because the lows have you appreciate the highs. And the highs give you perspective on the lows. If it’s not everything, it becomes flat or mundane.

I can’t wait to see little white kids dressing up as Black Panther.

Immediately after school, I did a lot of regional theater. I was in Berkeley and Princeton and Minneapolis and all over the country doing wonderful plays for the local audiences.

My character [in This Is Us], Randall, was adopted. He’d never met either of his biological parents so he seeks out and finds his biological father after 36 years. So that’s where we find my character at the beginning of the show.

I think the therapeutic part of acting is allowing myself to step into another human being’s shoes. It allows me the ability to release judgment, if I had any judgment to begin with. It’s an opportunity to understand rather than to stand outside and point fingers.

We’ve seen many Black men lose their life over the past couple of years. Not only just heard about it.

M. Night Shyamalan can draw quite a few people to quite a few things, and having the opportunity to work with him is very cool.

I think, for the first time, people are starting to say, ‘That’s Sterling K. Brown,’ which is cool, which is uncharted territory for your boy. It’s nice to be called by your name when you’re not in character.

I’m a little kid from St. Louis, Missouri, on the inside.

With any character you portray, you can never play the end in the beginning. You have to pursue and attack your intention as if they’re going to be successful.

My first series regular was on a TV show called ‘Starved,’ which was so many years ago, and I was the only guy they brought in. So I go in, I read, it goes well. The next day I hear I got the job, and I rejoiced.

With any sort of entertainment, you hope people are entertained.

As a father of two black sons now, you ask yourself, ‘What do I have to do to assure the safety of these boys?’ It can be daunting.

Don’t become too attached to your own myopia. Just because you’ve found a way to do things doesn’t mean it’s the way to do things. There are so many different ways in which to navigate this so-called life. Be open to experiencing more than one.

Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.

It’s the people who don’t recognize the racism within themselves that can be the most damaging because they don’t see it.

A couple of my favorite actors are Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Wright, and, may he rest in peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman. I’ve had an opportunity to see all of them onscreen and onstage.

People are starting to understand the other side‘s perspective and that’s where empathy can sort of begin – once you quit judging other people but just understand where they’re coming from.

Before I was an actor, I was a fan.

I went to a college prep high school in St. Louis, Missouri. When I graduated from school, I owned this thing called the Headmaster’s Cup, and the Headmaster’s Cup is for the student who exemplifies the spirit of the institution and is recognized by the faculty and administration.

Interestingly enough, I feel what the show [OJ Simpson] was able to accomplish in a really masterful way is that White America could look back on the show and the documentary and say, “We understand why Black people were effusive at the acquittal of O.J. Simpson.”