Quotes by Omari Hardwick

A powerful person is equally cool with their flaws and things that arent powerful about them at all.

That point of life when I learned I could cook, that always made me understand what cooks felt like feeding other people. Its okay to receive, but its really cool to give, so food is to me sexy because its the fact that someone is giving it to someone else.

I really had a problem with being the man. Im past it now, but that was my insecurity. I ran from that. I was cool with being No. 3 on the call sheet or No. 2.

I grew up in a two-parent household. We all played sports, all sports, which cost a lot of money. My pops was an attorney; he went to College of the Holy Cross with Clarence Thomas. My mom worked a bit, then gradually came home and took care of us full time.

Im a black Catholic raised in Decatur, Georgia, which was very gang-infested. Then, I went to an all-white private high school and excelled in sports and wrote poetry, then played football at the University of Georgia, minoring in drama.

Some of the most amazing people Ive met in life are cops.

As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think its very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.

Shoes make an outfit theyre like rims for a car.

You know how you can be romantic? You can be romantic by going to a beautiful setting, sitting on a park bench, and getting good ole-fashioned golden arches, a.k.a. McDonalds. Thats probably the best I can do romantically.

Poetry has, in a way, been my bridge to my acting career.

I found poetry at 12 and 13 and, lo and behold, learned that my attorney father had a background in poetry - as he wore dashikis and Afros in the 70s and named his kids Arabic names. He was a poet and a lot like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron and all of these folks. He definitely was an artist.

I was trying to pay the bills with poems, and it was easy to memorize my poems, because Id be riding my bike in California trying to memorize them before going on stage at a poetry lounge.

Thats the thing with me being a former athlete: in the way I attack characters and attack poetry is from the base of being an athlete.

Poetry is almost like my foundation for everything. I almost feel I am a better actor and writer because of it.