James Dean Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.

James Dean
If a man can bridge the gap between life and death... if he can live on after he's died... To me the only success, the only greatness ... is in immortality.

James Dean
An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet.

James Dean
In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible. He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art.

James Dean
When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn't acting. It's following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that. So the director's task is just that — to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over. And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chest-full of push-buttons.

James Dean
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.

James Dean