Clint Eastwood Quotes

When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me. ~ Clint Eastwood

If somebody's dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they're going to have to take what they get. ~ Clint Eastwood

You definitely do not do films for that particular reason. You do them for yourself, for your satisfaction of creating this thing with characters and watching these characters take on real life - that's all you care about. ~ Clint Eastwood

I can't do that to myself! ~ Clint Eastwood

Just trust your instincts. There's an old saying in golf, you've studied the swing many times, and you practice and practice, but when you stand over the ball, you just have to trust your swing. And you trust it. And if you don't trust it, you'll ruin it; your brain will take over. ~ Clint Eastwood

I'm not one of these guys who sits around saying, 'Gee, I mean, the person had a strange childhood and that's why he's doing this horrible thing. Poor Jeffrey Dahmer. He's just had a bad childhood and that's why he's eating people.' Wait a second! This person should be removed from the planet. ~ Clint Eastwood

I would like to be interpreted as a liberal libertarian, like leave everybody alone and let them do their own thing. ~ Clint Eastwood

When you're making a film you start living with it, and I find myself sitting down and figuring out a sound or melody that would go with a film, or a particular period. It's not brain surgery, you just kind of feel it along. ~ Clint Eastwood

[FBI] philosophy is "Go ahead and make the story you want to make, and hopefully we'll love it." So that's that. ~ Clint Eastwood

Society is at odds with itself. ~ Clint Eastwood

The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of well-being in themselves. They don't have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays. ~ Clint Eastwood

My wildest tipping point moment came when I was introduced to Clint Eastwood. He was sitting there, typical Clint Eastwood, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, holding a Budweiser. He looks at me and says, "I watch your show from time to time." I just stopped. I was like, "I can't even think about that. I'm not even sure if I'm happy about that." ~ Chris Harrison

When Clint Eastwood walks into a room, you may not know his name. But you know who he is. ~ Mark Valley

This year I have Sister Mary Joseph for Religion. Right away I could tell she was going to become my archenemy. She has a stony face with a mean squint; Clint Eastwood in a wimple. She trained the squint on me and decided I was trouble from the get-go. ~ Natalie Standiford

I don't wanna need you because I can't have you. ~ Clint Eastwood

I think 'Dirty Harry' was probably sensitive toward the victims of violent crime. ~ Clint Eastwood

A talented executive would be somebody who knows how to surround themselves with a lot of people that will make him look good. You could say that about a politician or you could say that about a head of a major corporation or what have you. The people you surround yourself with are very important. ~ Clint Eastwood

Nobody wants to make something that displeases people, but once you make a film, that's out of your control and you can't think about that. You just have to follow your head and make sure that you're satisfied by putting down what you intended. ~ Clint Eastwood

My uncle played rugby, and my dad played football, and they used to argue which game was the roughest - and everybody agreed rugby was. It's a great team sport, and to be successful, every person has to play in the same level. ~ Clint Eastwood

Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog. ~ Clint Eastwood

I've taken advantage of a few breaks that came along and moved along with them. ~ Clint Eastwood

The U.S. military was segregated 'til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated. ~ Clint Eastwood

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove - disapprove of their point of view. ~ Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood. Here's a guy who's been involved in so many movies, lots of them masterpieces, and now he's a director. I just like everything I know about him. He's very decisive, he makes up his mind real quick. ~ Bobby Farrelly

The main thing is to do each project the way you want, and if they find an audience, that's terrific. And if they don't, there's nothing you can do anyway, so don't let it concern you that much. An awful lot of good movies have done badly and an awful lot of bad movies have done very well. There are no real rhymes or reasons for it. Sometimes the stars don't always align right. But if you've done the best you can, you feel pretty good about it. ~ Clint Eastwood

When you're young, you're very reckless. Then you get conservative. Then you get reckless again. ~ Clint Eastwood

I'm trying to preach the idea that if we don't pay attention to history we're destined to repeat it. ~ Clint Eastwood

Let's not go and ruin it by thinking too much. ~ Clint Eastwood

Maybe I`m getting to the age when I`m starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now. You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot - both on the Right and the Left. ~ Clint Eastwood

Tomorrow is promised to no one. ~ Clint Eastwood

I think great movies have to have some great moments in them to bring them up to that level. ~ Clint Eastwood

The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach. ~ Clint Eastwood

A Love like this happens but once in a lifetime ~ Clint Eastwood

Westerns. A period gone by, the pioneer, the loner operating by himself, without benefit of society. It usually has something to do with some sort of vengeance; he takes care of the vengeance himself, doesn't call the police. Like Robin Hood. It's the last masculine frontier. Romantic myth. I guess, though it's hard to think about anything romantic today. In a Western you can think, Jesus, there was a time when man was alone, on horseback, out there where man hasn't spoiled the land yet. ~ Clint Eastwood

As soon as you think you know Clint Eastwood, you don't know Clint Eastwood. ~ Paul Haggis

I'd like to be a bigger and more knowledgeable person ten years from now than I am today. I think that for all of us as we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open. ~ Clint Eastwood

You get to a certain age and you're just glad to be there. I don't know what to add to that. It's fun. You have to be a realist, so you try to look for roles that are within the age you are. ~ Clint Eastwood

Participating in a gun buyback program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids. ~ Clint Eastwood

I'm good when I've got a bit of an edge, like the Clint Eastwood type of archetypal character. The tough guy that doesn't say a lot. ~ Scott Adkins

I'd always tried to resist playing the supervirility thing. I liked showing the vulnerability of age. ~ Clint Eastwood

Deserve's got nothin' to do with it. ~ Clint Eastwood

An awful lot of good movies have gone unrecognized, and an awful lot of bad movies have had tremendous recognition. As long as you keep that in mind, you are never really disappointed. ~ Clint Eastwood

You should just evaluate the work and make your judgments accordingly. That's the way you do it in life and every other subject. ~ Clint Eastwood

I had always planned when I started directing in 1970 that after a few years I'd get tired of looking at myself on the screen and say: "Hey, let's not do that any more." But then every once in a while something pops up. I'm not saying it won't happen again but probably the odds get less as you set yourself for roles that fit your age group. ~ Clint Eastwood

There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. ~ Clint Eastwood

Acting gets into your blood, after so many years, and I just always like revisiting it. It's fun to meet new people and watch them coming along, at different stages of their careers. ~ Clint Eastwood

Work hard, keep your nose clean, and just stick around. ~ Clint Eastwood

I don't think I could do what Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or Ben Stiller do, where they direct a movie and they star in it. I would just be like, 'Oh, I don't even want to look at my face.' ~ Bill Hader

You take the work seriously, you don't take yourself seriously. You keep that straight and you'll do well the rest of your life. ~ Clint Eastwood

I just think it is important that you realize, that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go. ~ Clint Eastwood

I couldn't tell you exactly what I like about golf. Just when you think you've got it mastered it lets you know you haven't. I'm just crazy enough to do it. ~ Clint Eastwood

I never sympathise with the accused unless there's a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don't ever sympathise with the criminal. ~ Clint Eastwood

The craving for information is so huge now, and it can be marketed at such a rapid rate. ~ Clint Eastwood

I am not a regret type person. I don't believe in regrets. Lots of things you would do differently if you'd do it again, but you don't do it again, so you don't think about it. But that goes for life in general. You're only dealing with the knowledge you have at that time. ~ Clint Eastwood

In France, Clint Eastwood is like a god. ~ Cecile De France

I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice. ~ Clint Eastwood

I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more. ~ Clint Eastwood

Take your work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously ~ Clint Eastwood

The most beautiful gift I have received in my life is the trust of Clint Eastwood. When you have this respect and this kind of responsibility on your shoulders, of course you bring the best of yourself. ~ Cecile De France

I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ] ~ Clint Eastwood

When I was born, the economy wasn't in a great state; it was the Depression, and my father had to be quick to try and find work. ~ Clint Eastwood

If you're doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don't know what was going on in the person's mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him. ~ Clint Eastwood

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours. ~ Clint Eastwood

There are two kinds of actors
one sits in a dressing room waiting for his call and the other gets out into the business and polishes his craft by absorbing everything. I don't know enough, I'll never learn everything I need to learn. When a guy thinks he's already learned it, he can only go backwards. ~ Clint Eastwood

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less. ~ Clint Eastwood

Some people feel that the world owes them a living. ~ Clint Eastwood

I don't like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I'd like to see somebody who's going in the office. In fact, I'd like to not see them because that way you'd be sure that they'd be working. ~ Clint Eastwood

I love big business! ~ Clint Eastwood

There are certain age limits on police officers. They'd have retired me out at 65. ~ Clint Eastwood

First, I blow a hole in your face; then I go back inside, and sleep like a baby ... I guarantee you. ~ Clint Eastwood

His Charles Bronson-like demeanour together with his Clint Eastwood stare and his John Wayne swagger, created from a diet of westerns and Eighties TV mixed with a lifetime of planning, organising, managing, and leading, were now gelled together with the battle-hardened soldier he had become. ~ Connor Fitzgerald

I've learned a lot from Clint [Eastwood], who's an extremely economical director. ~ Angelina Jolie

We've got a great team of editors, that's true. And we work hard so that when we do the couple of takes that they're good takes hopefully. Not always, that's for sure; there are lots of bad ones, but we try to work hard. Clint Eastwood doesn't more than one or two takes in his films. And he makes some good films. ~ Emily Deschanel

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself. ~ Clint Eastwood

Westerns were all daddy liked to watch. Give me some Clint Eastwood, some Charles Bronson, and I was a happy girl. It was our father-daughter bonding. ~ Melissa Marr

When you hang a man, you better look at him. ~ Clint Eastwood

I don't see myself as conservative, but I'm not ultra-leftist. You build a philosophy of your own. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live. ~ Clint Eastwood

The stronger the participation of the female characters, the better the movie. They knew that in the old days, when women stars were equally as important as men. ~ Clint Eastwood

On a scale of one to ten you're a two, and that's cuz I've never seen a one. ~ Clint Eastwood

Whatever the drama of the story is, you have to be true to it. ~ Clint Eastwood

All I know is there's thousands of people in the Academy and a lot of them, the majority of them, haven't won Oscars.A lot of people are crying, I guess. ~ Clint Eastwood

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands. ~ Clint Eastwood

The advice you give to young directors for sure is to go out and become some version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick and Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come and offer you movies. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking. ~ Sean Penn

When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it. ~ Clint Eastwood

I became a Republican in 1951, the first year I could vote. ~ Clint Eastwood

My grandfather lived to be late 90s on one side and on the other side, 70s or something. And my father died young, at 63. But he didn't take very good care of himself. ~ Clint Eastwood

Dude, he's got that mean, squinty Clint Eastwood stare that's scary as shit.[Bailey] ~ Lorelei James

Clint Eastwood is an extraordinary director because he knows the value of a buck. He knows where it will show on the screen. ~ Angela Lansbury

In recent times it just seems that women have been relegated to either romantic roles or fluff pieces. So the appeal, for me, is to make a picture about a real woman. ~ Clint Eastwood

I never look back and think too much about my films. I've done some work I've been proud of over the years but which of them is my favourite I really don't know. I could say the last one. I've had little jumps in my career like Unforgiven possibly. ~ Clint Eastwood

I'm always trying to tackle subjects that tax me and make me think. That's the key to staying young at heart. The brain has to be exercised the same as the rest of the body. ~ Clint Eastwood

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning. ~ Clint Eastwood

There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it. ~ Clint Eastwood

I still work out on a daily basis. ~ Clint Eastwood

There's really no way to teach you how to act, but there is a way to teach you how to teach yourself to act. That's kind of what it is; once you learn the little tricks that work for you, pretty soon you find yourself doing that. ~ Clint Eastwood

Just try not to ingest a lot of fats, and just try to eat carefully. ~ Clint Eastwood

It's not about you. It's about them. ~ Clint Eastwood

The fact is, violence is not only not a beautiful thing, but it's also very painful and not without consequences for the perpetrator as well as the victim. ~ Clint Eastwood

What happened is I was going to college in 1950. L. A. City College. A guy I knew was going to an acting class on Thursday nights. He started telling me about all the good-lookin' chicks and said, "Why don't you go with me?" So I probably had some motivation beyond thoughts of being an actor. And sure enough, he was right. There were a lot of girls and not many guys. I said, "Yeah, they need me here." I wound up at Universal as a contract player. ~ Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood is so fair and consistent. It does not matter who he is talking to, he is always nice. It doesn't matter whether he is with a production assistant or Steven Spielberg, he is friendly and never seems superior. I think it is hard for people to realize that he is accessible because they are caught up in the image and can't talk to him because he is 'Clint Eastwood', so they get tongue-tied. They get terrified. It is funny watching people with him. ~ Paul Walker