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  • Alan Arkin Quotes   41
  • 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



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Horse Quotes , Hard Times Quotes
  • I don't love the business. I never wanted to be a part of it. I don't think any actor does. Most of the time, I've been really fortunate to work with people who are really fun to work with. It doesn't mean we don't take it seriously, but no one is under the delusion (that we're) bringing world peace.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Fun Quotes , Mean Quotes
  • Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Fall Quotes , Thinking 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



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Strange Places Quotes , Class 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



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Trying Quotes , Acting 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



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Real Quotes , Order Quotes
  • I'm an actor. My life as an actor depends on who sends me what. I'm just taking the best stuff that I can find that's sent my way, regardless of how big or little the paycheck is. I don't want to work for scale anymore. I'm at a point now where, no matter how good something is, I'm not going to kill myself and end up in the hole.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Actors Quotes , Want 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



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Party Quotes , Heart Quotes
  • For many years my acting came from a place of surmounting some enormous obstacle, confronting some stern and faceless judge who would condemn me to a pit of hell if I didn't achieve the "zone," if even for a moment. Not a particularly happy place to work from.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alan Arkin Quotes , Years Quotes , Judging Quotes