20th-century Actor Quotes

If you can do a part and not have the acting show.

I was never really in love with acting. I always love movies and going to the theater. But did I love being in this business? Not for five minutes. I did it because I needed a job. For the first year or two, it's like a poison that enters your body. It's like a virus, and your body has to release antidotes. But it would be very unfair to say that it's that way all the time. It's just like anything this overwhelming that you enter suddenly. It's like being a contact at West Point. You're thrown into an intense environment. From the word go, you realize it's sink or swim.

Words are like children. The more care you lavish on them, the more they demand.

I firmly believe that we are all given signs and dreams and put in situations that define who we were and who we are to become. All of it points towards our destiny. All we need to do is listen carefully to the messages and follow our dreams. It is in our dreams that we find our true identities and where our destiny awaits.

Isaiah Washington

Animal rights is a part of my everyday life. When you live by example, you create a certain level of awareness. Friends of mine, people I have never discussed vegetarianism with, are adopting vegetarian habits because they see it.

Joaquin Phoenix

Now then, I hasten to repeat that these practices [S&M] are certainly not usual or universal among us, but rather are variants practiced by a minority that is not representative of all gay people, although they do make up an identifiable sector that I don't want to leave out (as do many politically correct gay people, who like to give the impression that gay men only sodomize each other on Versace cushions by candlelights to Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach's Suites for Cello.)

Miss Shangay Lily

Age simply doesn't enter into it! The older the friend, the more he is valued, particularly when he shows so visibly the characteristics that we all look for in friends. You have only to look at a genuine teddy's face to see at once the loyalty, common sense, and above all, dependability behind it.

Well, you know, people always ask me what makes Creature from the Black Lagoon hold up after all these years. I always say that if you look at the movie, the storyline starts with the Big Bang. Then it goes to the creation of man, and you see evolution with man coming out of the sea. The theory today is that man DID come out of the sea. These are issues that men today are STILL dwelling on. Was man created? Or, was man evolved? So, that's why if you watch Creature, you're not bored because it still makes sense.

Ben Chapman (actor)

With my brains and your looks, we could go places.

Cary Grant roles are ones I would love to have played, but I was never given any.

Sorry, I don't understand ragas. Just show me the tune and I sing. Then sing anything you like, said Boral, and Saigal started singing something in Raag Asawari.

If the character has the motivation to dance round trees, then I will dance round trees. If the motivation is strong enough, then I'll fly to the moon.

A great book provides escapism for me. The artistry and the creativity in a story are better than any drugs.

Wentworth Miller

Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You're all alone with your concentration and imagination, and that's all you have. Being a good actor isn't easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I'm done.

My experience with first-time directors is that they're all extremely prepared, because I guess they're worried. They spend weeks preparing everything, and they have to get used to the fact that once you get there, everything goes wrong and you have to make everything up.

Matthew Broderick

I have found that a smile and a stick will carry you through all right, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is the smile that does the trick.

God's greatest gift to you is your unlimited potential. Your greatest gift to God is to use that potential to the fullest.

James Arthur Ray

I was a French Quarter rat from the moment I could get on a bus by myself and go to the French Quarter. I played music most of my early life and it just seemed that to entertain people was a really good thing to do.

John Larroquette

If I had known this, I would've put that patch on thirty-five years earlier.

Next to a small war, there is nothing quite like a general election to stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood.

An image does not matter for me. I always break an image that I have created. I don't want to stick to one particular thing and just keep doing it.

When people ask me about my story, I just go through the positive stuff: the tent-pole moments, the big landmark checkpoints.

Everything's so repressive now – it's the No generation. You can't do anything, you can't eat anything, you have to abstain.

Michael Douglas

Someone asked me once what my philosophy of life was, and I said some crazy thing. I should have said, how the hell do I know?

The secret of my work is a knowledge of what constitutes living in general, I think. You take the weaknesses of your own character and of other people's characters and you exploit them. You show yourself up, and you show them up.