Alan Arkin Movie Quotes

I would like to have a movie under my own control sometime, and see what could be done with it. Who knows? Maybe Hollywood will make an improvisational movie someday. ~ Alan Arkin

The last time I heard real screaming in the theatre was when I went to see a movie I did years ago, called 'Wait Until Dark.' Now, my mother was the least emotional person on the planet, but when I got killed in the movie, she stood up and screamed, 'That's my son!' At Radio City Music Hall in New York! ~ Alan Arkin

Filmmakers, they tell me they want to make movies. I say, 'Good, go out, buy a $500 camera, get some friends and make a movie. Don't go to Hollywood. Stay wherever you are.' ~ Alan Arkin

People think that the people in Hollywood have some master plan. They just make the movies that people go to see. I think it's that simple. I promise you if people were lining up around the block to see a Bible movie, they'd make Bible movies from now to the end of time. ~ Alan Arkin

If I'm going to make a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit. ~ Alan Arkin

If you want to be an actor and you love acting, you can do it whether you're doing something else or not. You can be connected with community theater or make your own little movies. But if you want to be a movie star, you've got a tough road ahead of you. ~ Alan Arkin

Things are never going to turn out how you think they will. ~ Alan Arkin

I can't even pretend to play golf. ~ Alan Arkin

I would rather die than do a play - 10 years in solitary instead. ~ Alan Arkin

That's the privilege of old age: You don't have to remember. ~ Alan Arkin

I'm very old. I haven't got time to be charming. ~ Alan Arkin

[The business is] more corporate and more formulaic and less experiential. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't know what I'm proudest of. The fact that my kids still talk to me. ~ Alan Arkin

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

For everybody, the tide comes in, the tide goes out - if you're an actor, particularly. ~ Alan Arkin

I never had a better role than I had in 'Little Miss Sunshine.' That was one of my favorite roles ever. ~ Alan Arkin

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

I know that if I can't move people, then I have no business being an actor. ~ Alan Arkin

I wanted to make it in New York. I thought if I went out to the Midwest, I'd be burying myself. But I was wrong. ~ Alan Arkin

I gotta keep busy. I'm not happy unless I'm working on two, three things. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better? ~ Alan Arkin

I don't mind watching plays once in a while, but as long as I don't have to be in them. ~ Alan Arkin

I get a little upset, yeah, if a year goes by and I don't get a script. Thank God I have other interests that keep me from becoming a nervous wreck. ~ Alan Arkin

You hit a certain age, and you haven't died yet, and you become an elder statesman. I think I get a lot of applause because I'm not keeling over. ~ Alan Arkin

I'm not sure if I've learned anything from show business. Life in general has taught me if you're kind to people, everything gets easier. Being a decent person really smoothes the way for you and everyone else. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't know why we have to put things in boxes of superlatives. That isolates them. Life is fluid, and the minute you start trying to put a line around something, it will deceive you and go away. ~ Alan Arkin

Over the years, I played with a couple of spectacular guitar players, and playing with them has made me play better than I knew how to play. I hope the same thing is true with acting. ~ Alan Arkin

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. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't like improvising on camera, particularly, but very often, a scene will not be working, and you rehearse it once or twice, and you realize something's missing. So I'll play with it until it makes sense. ~ Alan Arkin

I've always been an improviser. I was one before I knew even what the word was ... And acting, that I've been doing since I was 5. ~ Alan Arkin

I gotta make a living. I make no bones about that. Most actors do. But within that context, I've never not tried to make something as fresh and alive as I possibly could make it. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare. It keeps it more of a surprise. I don't feel like it has to be a mystery. ~ Alan Arkin

Creativity means learning where the rules exist, and then breaking them! Saying, "It's better this way." But you have to know the rules in order to break them with any grace. ~ Alan Arkin

I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos. ~ Alan Arkin

I'd have to say that my favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning. 'Little Miss Sunshine' is like that. That's my fave genre, if I had to pick one. ~ Alan Arkin

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

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. ~ Alan Arkin

I did a couple of movies in Brazil, and the actors were incredibly congenial and hung out together a lot. Even the biggest stars would do radio commercials - they're not put on a pedestal like they are in the United States. ~ Alan Arkin

'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. ~ Alan Arkin

No matter what you do or where you are, you're going to be missing out on something. ~ Alan Arkin

If you're playing a negative character, sooner or later it rubs off on you. Some people don't mind living in that state, but I don't want to be there anymore. I don't want to live in a state of depression. ~ Alan Arkin

Something I miss terribly from the '60s - the most important phrase in the English language was, 'I got hung up.' Somebody says they got hung up, it's unassailable, you know? You don't go near that. Whoa! I know what that can be like. ~ Alan Arkin

I love doing kids' shows, and I love working with kids. I've done a lot of it. A lot of people don't like working with children, but I love it. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't sense that I am someone's hero, though I'm happy when people like my work. I've learned how to be gracious about it, but I try to let it go by. I've seen how, if people start taking on those accolades, it can ruin them completely. ~ Alan Arkin

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. ~ Alan Arkin

You can begin to see an amalgamation of cultures, the real beginning of one world. Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music. I wonder if people have even noticed what a tremendous cultural signal the Beatles are. ~ Alan Arkin

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. ~ Alan Arkin

What I look for these days is that I don't have long speeches, the characters gets to sit down a lot, I don't have to learn any foreign languages, and it doesn't shoot in Minneapolis in February. That's mainly what I look for. ~ Alan Arkin

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. ~ Alan Arkin

There have been times when I've been broke, and a job came along, and I've said, 'Yeah! Let's do it!' But I will never do something without having a feeling of knowing how to play it. I've been in projects that I felt terrible about afterwards, but I've always had something that sparked me while I was doing it. ~ Alan Arkin

I love working if it's with people who are capable of having a good time. People with a little bit of enjoyment of what they do. If it's enormous pressure, and people feel that their lives are at stake, then it's agony. So I try to pick projects where I feel like I'm going to avoid those traps. ~ Alan Arkin

I don't believe there's anything in life you can't go back and fix. The ancient Vedas - the oldest Hindu philosophy - and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that's true, there's no such thing as a past or a future - it's all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future. ~ Alan Arkin

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. ~ Alan Arkin

Success has nothing to do with box office as far as I'm concerned. Success has to do with achieving your goals, your internal goals, and growing as a person. It would have been nice to have been connected with a couple more box office hits, but in the long run, I don't think it makes you happier. ~ Alan Arkin

Things have got to add up to 100 points. The script is part of it, the character is part of it, the people I'm working with is the third part of it - and any combination of the three has got to add up to 100 points. ~ Alan Arkin

The idea of it becomes a little freaky if you're dealing with someone who has trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality, but that's a concern no matter what kind of movie you're dealing with. ~ Adam Arkin

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. ~ Alan Arkin

A great movie evolves when everybody has the same vision in their heads. ~ Alan Parker

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. ~ Alan Arkin

I think that was the case here. We just wanted it to be good for everybody. ~ Adam Arkin

To confront those fears, in a controlled environment, where there's 300 people around you going through the same thing, it's this weird sort of yin and yang. ~ Adam Arkin

Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber is the greatest bad guy in a movie ever. ~ Ike Barinholtz

First and foremost, it was fun. Everybody involved with it made you feel like they were an important contributor to the process. We were made to feel valued. ~ Adam Arkin

What I had to say was, in general, I'm not really a fan of any one genre of any kind of film. ~ Adam Arkin

I'm not a big horror movie fan. I am afraid of them; they scare me. ~ Alan Tudyk

I think in the case of horror, it's a chance to confront a lot of your worse fears and those fears usually have to do, ironically, with powerlessness and isolation. ~ Adam Arkin

It's always been my formula to get the next picture set up before anyone's seen the last one. ~ Alan Rudolph

What we got here is a failure to communicate. ~ Paul Newman

There are some days when you don't feel like being Alan Cumming. ~ Alan Cumming

The hardest thing for me about making movies, and that included 'M*A*S*H' because it was made like a movie, was starting and stopping. ~ Alan Alda

We all look to have transcendent experiences that lift us out of the everyday, and fear is a good one. But, I think it's the same reason why people want to laugh their heads off. ~ Adam Arkin

I have on my bookshelf a book called 'Movie Monsters' by Alan Ormsby, a kids' book I got when I was in kindergarten. It started there. ~ Jason Henderson

Open the pod bay doors, Hal. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

It's amazing that this is still news to people, but that affects the final outcome of the film. When people are treated well, and they're made to feel valued, they give 110 percent. ~ Adam Arkin

There's something about Alan Arkin. Even when he's doing nothing, he makes me laugh. I've always had that reaction to him: he's got a weary world-view that makes him perfectly cast. ~ John Curran

The whole question of fiduciary responsibility is a very old concept. You could make a movie about someone making that rule at any point in history, and within a few months, it will turn out to be timely. ~ Alan Alda

I was coming from a very cerebral, dark, difficult, layered play by Christopher Hampton and doing an action movie in Hollywood (Die Hard) with explosions, and I was holding a gun. ~ Alan Rickman

Alan Pardew has had to juggle his pack ~ Alan McInally

I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like ... Gene Hackman. ~ Alan Furst

We are all out-on-loan to one another by God". ~ R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

The Father is always intimately entwined in our struggles".

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

No one is perfect and perfectly holy but God alone".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

I use Facebook to broadcast my intellectual luggage".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

Be wary of any man who says he has no enemies"

~ R. Alan Woods [2006] ~ R. Alan Woods

Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare. ~ Alan Ayckbourn

I am definitively not a 'universalist'".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

I could never be the kind of writer who went to the set of the movie and fussed and fretted about, 'Oh, that dialogue's wrong,' or 'That character doesn't look like that.' That would be insufferable. ~ Alan Moore

Help us to forgive ourselves as we struggle in our process of forgiving others."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

Ecclesiastes would be quite unbearable were it not for Heavens eternity and its citizens".

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

Hello, Alan." said Carol's dad Keith.
"Hello, Alan." said Carol's mum, Stella, not bothering to think of a greeting of her own. ~ Alan Partridge

My life is an open book; at least this photo album".

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

No one should ever take them self or others too seriously."

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

God has a part for all of us to fulfill and every part is vital".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

Truth inevitably pierces its target, the hearts of men".

~ R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

I have often been accused of being obtuse, however one must dig well below the top-soil to get my drift".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

God can, will, and does speak to us through our dreams".

~R. Alan Woods [2006] ~ R. Alan Woods

Not when tradition is built upon Truth".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

I think someone, somewhere, at some time once said, 'Nuance is a bitch!' ".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

Yet, we must never 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

We all have a past that may be worthy of some criticism".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods