Alan Arkin Quotes, Burritos Quotes, Actors Quotes

I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Burritos Quotes , Actors Quotes

Hollywood is a strange place. The class structure here is more rigid than almost anyplace I've ever experienced. It's made more difficult by the fact that it's constantly changing. You never know what class you belong to unless you're one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Strange Places Quotes , Class Quotes

Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Winning Quotes , Arbitrary Quotes

A product is most easily sold when it has an identity. So they wrap you all up and put a label on you. And then that's what you have to be. But what I'm looking for is the opportunity to explore what I can do, probing the limits, learning.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Opportunity Quotes , Identity Quotes

There's a familiarity that sometimes shocks and annoys the hell out of me. People want a relationship with you that they haven't earned.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , People Quotes , Want Quotes

You know what Andy Warhol's sole contribution to this country has been? He made Campbell's Soup a household word.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Country Quotes , Soup Quotes

No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you're gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can't do parenting right.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Book Quotes , Reading Quotes

That's what we're all doing, all the time, whether we know it or not. Whether we like it or not. Creating something on the spur of the moment with the materials at hand. We might just as well let the rest of it go, join the party, and dance our hearts out.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Party Quotes , Heart Quotes

But one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century came out of people dropping things.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Discovery Quotes , People Quotes

My favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Serious Quotes , Comedy Quotes

I read somewhere that some people believe that the entire universe is a matrix of living thought. And I said, "Man, if that's not a definition of God, I don't know what is.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Believe Quotes , Men Quotes

Two-thirds of American movies are extensions of commercials -- they tell you how to feel and they tell you how to think -- rather than letting you figure it out on your own.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Two Quotes

If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Fake Quotes

It's murder to doubt yourself in life. It took until I was 45 to get to that point. As hard as it is in your work, it's harder in your life. But it can be done.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Doubt Quotes , Done Quotes

I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Moving Quotes , Eight Quotes

I don't live in L.A. on purpose because I don't wanna be immersed in that. I have to have a real life, with real people, in order to inform what I'm doing; otherwise, it just becomes the snake eating its own tail. Vampirism.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Real Quotes , Order Quotes

Improvisation sometimes seemed more like jazz than acting, like verbal jazz, with the actors playing a theme back and forth, and then introducing another theme, incorporating it, somehow trying to work their way all together to a meaning of some kind, or at least a conclusion.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Trying Quotes , Acting Quotes

'Catch-22' was a huge failure, and it rubbed off on everybody connected to it. I had a bunch of lean years where I had to do things, a lot of which I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Years Quotes , Bunch Quotes

What I've learned about teaching is to refer back to the root of that word, which is educo, which means "to pull from." Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us; to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Teaching Quotes , Mean Quotes

I had a hard time treating my field as if it’s horse racing, putting actors in competition against each other. I see how the industry and the studios feel it’s important, but I don’t really have a feeling for being in competition. I want to feel sympathetic and close to others, not opposed to them.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Horse Quotes , Hard Times Quotes