Denzel Washington Accepts the AFI Life Achievement Award | AFI 2019 | TNT

I'm up here to say thank you to God for giving me this ability, for blessing me, for shaping me, for chastising me, for teaching me, for punishing me, for allowing me to be a vessel and touch people around the world. I want to thank AFI, Cicely Tyson, Ed Zwick, Spike Lee, Carl Franklin, Alan Nierob, my mother-- she's 95 years old now. [APPLAUSE] She's something else.

She's tough. Everything ends, it's because I'm your mother, that's why-- shut up. Still.

Still, the other day, because I'm your mother, that's why-- shut up. To my father, who taught me by example how to be a gentle man. The most important person in my life, 40 years-- 40 years of sacrifice, 40 years of forgiveness.

She taught me about faith, spirituality, love-- real love, unwavering love in spite of myself. I would not be alive without Pauletta Washington. I wouldn't be alive.

[APPLAUSE] Small minds discuss other people, gossip. Good minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.

That was Eleanor Roosevelt. That was also Pauletta's father, my father-in-law. He was a great man.

He taught me so much about what being a man really is. I want to end the night with a short video that we recorded of Pauletta's father 30 years ago, that my son Malcolm gave me, an AFI graduate. [APPLAUSE] Just a short, 30-second video, and this is what Pauletta's father had to say 30 years ago.

We were put here for a reason. God created man. And God intends for us to love all mankind.

And by being in a loving mood, caring for one another, that's our purpose for life. We should care for one another. And we should love one another.

[APPLAUSE] In this Twitter, tweet, meme, mean world that we've created for our children, the least we can do is consider what we've done and think about the young people, the future, and individually, collectively do the best we can to try and turn this thing around. I blame no one. I look in the mirror.

On the other side of it, what an opportunity we have because tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives. So what an opportunity we have to practice what he preached. Goodnight.