Quotes

Actors are boring when they are not working. It's a natural condition, because they don't have anything to do. They just lay around, and that's why so many of them get drunk. They really get to be boring people. My wife will attest to that.

[on Sam Peckinpah] Sam is, I think, a great filmmaker. Of course, he's his own worst enemy. Sam is an unusual human being, and he needs to be treated like an unusual human being. He can create an atmosphere, whether he's drunk, sober, pissed off or in a rage, or whatever. I mean, for about three or four hours a day, he's a fucking genius. But the rest of the time he spends wallowing in a kind of emotional reaction to either good or bad memories.

[on Sam Peckinpah] He knew how to bring something out of an actor that even the actor didn't know was there. That's what an actor works for. What else is there? Saying lines, or being cute, or whatever. No. People think about that. People think that acting is an easy chore. "Why, I can do that". Like they have today. Tits and ass, and this studio who's always doing his trip. Shooting and killing and blowing things up. Nah. That's junk. It's terrible junk. Commercial shit is what it is. And everybody likes it because it's easy. Nobody has to think about anything. They just sit there and sensitize themselves or desensitize themselves to anything real. And it's, "Oh boy! Wasn't he great? See that gun he had?" They're made for thirteen-, fourteen-year-old boys.

[on Steve McQueen] Steve has to prove he had a worse childhood than anybody else. Only one other person I know can compete with him and that's Charles Bronson.

[on Hard Contract (1969)] I was really unhappy with that film, because the fellow that directed it was also the writer. Now, he's a brilliant writer, but he was a terrible director. And he did so many things that were wrong, just out of pure ego, that he drove us all up the wall.

I'm a jazz kind of actor, not rock 'n' roll.

I came from dust bowl folk -- ordinary people who were stultified by the American Dream.

I meditate, I take good care of myself, sure. I don't get too involved in the details.

[on Sam Peckinpah] Sam was a mad genius. He would shove you right over into the abyss and sometimes he would jump in right after you.

[on winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Affliction (1997)] I finally got one right, I guess.

[on Stella Adler] Stella taught us that without style, without personality, you're just a stick out there.

The Magnificent Seven (1960) was really kind of a miraculous event that took place in my life.

First job I went out on in New York I got, and when I came back, the first job I went out on, I got.

Taking in and blowing out smoke? And now you see girls smoking cigars. It got to be such a fad. Girls on the covers of magazines, smoking cigars. Give me a break. I didn't want to be a part of that. I don't like 'popular'.

It was the desire to do the complete thing. I only took taking acting lessons because my whole thing, really, was to direct. But my first jobs were acting jobs.

[his eulogy for Bruce Lee] Farewell, Brother. It has been an honor to share this space in time with you. As a friend and a teacher, you have given to me, have brought my physical, spiritual and psychological selves together. Thank you. May peace be with you

Studios have been trying to get rid of the actor for a long time and now they can do it. They got animation. NO more actor, although for now they still have to borrow a voice or two. Anyway, I find it abhorrent.

[at the 71st Academy Awards, on his winning Actor in a Supporting Role for Affliction (1997)] My my my. Wow. You know, I've been around here - I've been working and doing this work for like over half my life. And I finally got one right, I guess. See, some of them you do for money, some of them you do for love. This is a love child.