Theodore Bikel Quotes

There is no role I cannot play except a midget.

Audiences are audiences.

'Visiting Mr. Green' is a good play. I enjoy being in it, and I have a wonderful colleague, Aidan deSalaiz, to work with. Audiences like it a lot. What's not to like?

I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sing about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.

I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.

It's a sad thing to contemplate, but I'm the last surviving cast member of 'The African Queen.'

Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.

If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.

For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.

I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.

I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.

Every actor wants to direct.

You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.

On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.

I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.

I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.

Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.

No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.

Accents. I'm very good with accents. I'm exceedingly good.

After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.

I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.

Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.

Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.

When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.

We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.

I refuse to do shows that are narrowly constructed, that appeal to only one sentiment. I do a lot of Jewish material in front of non-Jews and a lot of non-Jewish material in front of Jews on the simple theory that the non-Jews are entitled to a glimpse of a Jewish world and the Jews are entitled to a glimpse of the world.

But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.

You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.

Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?

An actor is supposed to emulate life. Instead, alas, many are imitating other actors. You don't fashion your knowledge of theatre or your approach to a role on the basis of what other actors have done. This kind of thinking is a great danger, especially in dealing with TV producers who frequently say things like, 'This is a Sean Connery type.'

No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations.

I don't speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote.

I always sang, I always acted, I always played.

While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.

But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.

Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.

I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.

I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.