Ed Asner Quotes

I was a newspaper editor in high school, and I truly thought of journalism as a career. I loved it.

If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets.

I can do lovers. I can do Sir Galahad types. I'm not going to limit myself in voice-overs to irascible old men.

I loved journalism until the day my journalism teacher, a man I revered, came by my desk and said, 'Are you planning on going into journalism?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'I wouldn't.' I said, 'Well, why not?' He said, 'You can't make a living.'

I am not a method actor, though I studied for a year with Lee Strasburg.

My first job was with an auto plant, Kansas City - they treated you like slaves. From there I went back to Chicago, worked in steel mills, drove a cab, stuff like that.

You don't work with Cloris Leachman, you experience her.

To my knowledge, there is no blacklist. But there is a mindset, even among liberal producers, that says 'He may be difficult, so let's avoid him.'

I got some news for you. One, there is no Jesus. Two, there is no God. Three, mind your own business and everything works out.

I'm not sought after. I never get enough work. It's the history of my career. There just isn't anything to turn down, let me put it that way.

I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.

They're sheep. They like Bush enough to credit him with saving the nation after 9/11. Three thousand people get killed, and everybody thinks they're next on the list. The president comes along, and he's got his six-guns strapped on, and people think he's going to save them.

Never thought acting was something you could make a living at. It wasn't until I was in college, and got a lead in a play, that I began to realize I might just be able to blunder into this profession.

They say making laws is like making sausages. You shouldn't watch. It's the same for acting, especially for the actor who works unconsciously.

Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get.

The older I've gotten, the more the need to exert comedy no matter how tragic a character I may be portraying because they are essentials for presenting truth.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare.

There are genuinely sufficient resources in the world to ensure that no one, nowhere, at no time, should go hungry.

It's like an athlete. He has a string of hot years, and then he fades into nothingness. The actor doesn't necessarily fade into nothingness. After his hot years, he fades into a different category.

All capitalists should be like Warren Buffett, and he says he should be taxed more.

I pray that this council, which will probably be too late to save Iraq, will do what it can, which will be immeasurably strong in what it does in trying to save our democracy.

We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life through the destruction of our ecology, and yet every one of us, in our own little comfortable ways, contributes daily to that destruction. It's time now to awaken in each one of us the respect and attention our beloved Mother deserves.

I will always have enough money to last the rest of my life ... as long as I don't buy anything.

I've never stopped loving cartoons. I loved cartoons as a kid. I can still look at them and enjoy them.

Some of my earliest political feelings were based on the anti-Japanese bubblegum cards I got. There were also Spanish Civil War bubblegum cards. Awful.

There's never been a time in history, no matter what the public thinks, when actors have been paid more than they should be.