A man who limits his interests limits his life.
What's important about an actor is his acting, not his life.
I sometimes feel that I'm impersonating the dark unconscious of the whole human race. I know this sounds sick, but I love it.
If I could prescribe a single rule for looking at a work of art it would be to enjoy it. If we're honest with ourselves, we have to admit we enjoy our tears just as much as we enjoy our laughter. The only moments of life that are a bore are when we don't care one way or another.
Man has ruled this world as a stumbling demented child king, long enough. And as his empire crumbles, my precious black widow shall rise as his most fitting successor.
I don't play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge.
There's something fascinating about seeing something you don't like at first but directly know you will love—in time. People are that way, all through life. You come against a personality, and it questions yours. You shy away but know there are gratifying secrets there, and the half-open door is often more exciting than the wide.
There is nothing more soul-satisfying than the first succulent bite into the juicy frankfurter,
We exponents of horror do much better than those Method actors. We make the unbelievable believable. More often than not, they make the believable unbelievable.
Right at this moment, I only want silence. I believe that the end of life is silence in the love people have for you. I've actually been running through what people have said about the end. Religion says that the end is one thing, because it serves their purpose. But great thinkers alike haven't always agreed. Shakespeare knew how to say it better than anyone else. Hamlet says 'The rest is silence.' And when you think of the noises of everyday life, you realize how particularly desirable that is. Silence.
There comes a time in life when you know what you like and have to make up your mind to like what you know, or at least have begun to know. In other words, you must determine in what direction your knowledge is leading, thus far.
One thing is certain: the arts keep you alive. They stimulate, encourage, challenge, and, most of all, guarantee a future free from boredom. They allow growth and even demand it in that time of life we call maturity but too often enter it with a childish faith that what we learned in youth is sustenance enough for the years when most men are mentally famished but won't admit it—or when they are apt to curb their hunger with the sops of complacency, security, and the assurance of death.
It's as much fun to scare as to be scared.
I was never educated to be an actor. I went to a regular college. It was a great thing for me because I feel that the main thing to get out of college is a thirst for knowledge. College should teach you how to be curious. Most people think that college is the end of education, but it isn't. The ceremony of giving you the diploma is called commencement. And that means you are fit to commence learning because you have learned hot to learn.
I’m always intrigued by my nonsensical concern with picking out a bunch of things that look exactly alike the ones that somehow I feel are the best and belong to me. It’s that same crazy urge or superstition, or whatever it is, that makes me open a Bible in a hotel room, hoping for some great happenstance spiritual word of advice. More often than not, I hit a long passage of begats and begots, which contain little inspiration other than the fact that procreation is the highest aim of life.
Be curious about life, and cautious with it!
Well, what do you owe yourself? Do you dare take time out to listen to the grass grow, or can you even afford the expense of getting far enough away from life's daily cacophony to hear it grow if you took the time?
I know what I like—I like art—and I like what I know.
In art, religion, and politics the respect must be mutual, no matter how violent the disagreement.
It's just endless what you can learn from a single work of art. You can fill up the crevices of your life, the cracks of your life, the places where the mortar comes out and falls away-you can fill it up with the love of art.
I'm extremely profane, unconsciously so, when I see something great for the first time; I don't know why, but beauty and profanity are related to me in the same way. It may be that I want to think of art in the vernacular, but I have no control over what comes out of my mouth when my eyes take in great beauty...it might just be the reason I avoid going to museums with elderly ladies.
Sometimes you read a passage by a great writer, and you know what he says and how he says it will always be, for you, the only possible way it could be. Less often a painter will describe an event in a way that fits into your interpretation of that event so perfectly that it becomes the event itself.
Someone called actors 'sculptors in snow.' Very apt. In the end, it's all nothing.
No one but Gene Tierney could have played 'Laura.' There was no other actress around with her particular combination of beauty, breeding, and mystery.
Do you ever rub your eyes and suddenly find you're awake and not asleep, as you'd grown to suspect you were?
I know what I like—I like art—and I like what I know.
We may all be a peculiar lot...often broke, often dissatisfied because we're not doing more and better work...but we know how to have a ball that makes the rest of the world seem square.
I trust people who are violent about art, as long as they aren't closed-minded. But, unfortunately, most art blowhards are also art bigots.
In order to get out of the dumps, there are many steps to walk up, and most of the ones I know of, not only for myself but others, are made of money.
Nevertheless, Los Angeles is my "Home, Sweet Home." I chose it, and, as goes the cliché, I've made my bed—but I'll be damned if I'll lie in it or, worse, culturally die in it!
