Quotes

[on being listed as one of the screen's all-time best heavies] I guess they never saw me in most of my pictures. Still, I've never stopped working so I can't complain.

[on young actors] Each one assumes that his mere presence is God's gift to humanity and he finds out over the years that this isn't the case, but that the acquisition of the skills is equally important. You find out that the essence of it is simplification.

[on the 'amazing experience' of old Hollywood] The conformity of the material was a problem, true. But the old system had virtues. [They] would gamble once in a while on an offbeat picture... We all had to go to film school, and we worked in hordes of pictures - B pictures - which were shot very fast.

[on why he never became a target of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the Red-baiting HUAC, despite being known for his left-of-center politics] I was involved in the things he was throwing rocks at but I was never a target. Looking back, I suspect my Irish name, my being a Catholic and an ex-Marine sort of softened the blow.