American Actor Quotes

I feel a horror for exaggerated love or friendship. It's just too well demonstrated to me that when the moment comes that one asks something, or has need of something, the responce is not worth a biscuit.

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

I'm really concerned about the quality of education in the United States. I think it's going down, and I don't think we spend enough money on it. It's unhealthy for our society that we remove ourselves more and more every day from books, from reading, from writing. All areas of education need more emphasis. I think we're a bit lazy here in America. I believe in the ideal of the classic liberal education, and I also think athletics are very important to the education of young people.

Tommy Lee Jones

It was my mustache that landed jobs for me. In those silent-film days it was the mark of a villain. When I realized they had me pegged as a foreign nobleman type I began to live the part, too. I bought a pair of white spats, an ascot tie and a walking stick.

In the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for.

When the first Superman movie came out, I gave dozens of interviews to promote it. The most frequent question was: What is a hero? My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences. Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. They are the real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them.

Christopher Reeve

I want to be the condensation on the glass. I want to be that phenomenon that takes place between hot and cold.

Terrence Howard

I'm not a voice-over actor, I do Sebastian because Sebastian is a part of me, but I can't sit there and make up a voice for you.

Samuel E. Wright

The Room is a drama that is also a comedy that is also an existential cry for help that is finally a testament to human endurance.

If I wanted to go crazy, I would do it in Washington because it would not be noticed.

There's so much I should say, so many things I should tell him, but in the end I tell him nothing. I cut a line and my losses, and I light a cigarette.

Just how many did we kill? I honestly have the feeling of groping for words to explain this or I might say 'my God, what have we done?'

On the bombing of Hiroshima

Robert Lewis (director)

In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way.

I have lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I found purpose and meaning in your response. For an actor that is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life.
For now, I'm not changing anything. I will insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring in my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you will know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway.

Charlton Heston

Somehow it is the male's duty to put the best years of his life into work he doesn't like in order that he may "retire" and enjoy himself as soon as he is too old to do so. This is more than just the system - it is the credo. It is the same thing that prompted Thoreau to say, in 1839: 'The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'

Sterling Hayden

I like looking at the characters. Seeing them always brings up some voice or attitude. I am much more visual and that works so much better than having someone tell me what the character is all about

When we leap, we must leap as though the net will appear. A leap in life, however big or small, is an act of commitment with the expectation of success.

Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Joseph N. Welch

I feel passionate about things. And I feel things deeply, and that's always the way I've been taught, right from the beginning, that the deeper you feel something the better the acting..... and then it's also the person you're playing. If you're playing someone who's upset or yelling, that's what you gotta do. That's the job.

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough

Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.

Sometimes I think life is a terminal illness.

To Ernest Hemingway

We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind. We are the authorities on improving conditions. Criminon (sic). We can rehabilitate criminals. We can bring peace and unite cultures.

Where do the really best laughs come from? Terrific connections made intellectually, or terrific revelations made emotionally.

If you want to scare your boyfriend next Halloween, come dressed as what he fears most. Commitment.

Peter Nelson (actor)