Top 201 Quotes & Sayings by Bill Murray - Page 3

I met a woman who photographed celebrity dogs for a book, and she told me that Ralph Lauren's dog is named Rugby. I said, Yeah, but his real name is Stickball.

To people who want to be rich and famous, I'd say, "Get rich first and see if that doesn't cover it."

I think the only reason I've had the career life that I've had is that someone told me some secrets early on about living. You can do the very best you can when you're very, very relaxed, no matter what it is or what your job is, the more relaxed you are the better you are. That's sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had, the better I did it. And I thought, that's a job I could be proud of. It's changed my life learning that, and it's made me better at what I do.

When you act obnoxious towards people, like on a movie set, they say "we're ready for you" and I say "oh, go to hell, my feet hurt and my head aches." You want to have a margarita for lunch, and people like these little ADs and production assistants are like, "well, he's drinking again."

I think there's only so many people that can take care of themselves, and can take care of other people. And the rest of the people … they're useful in terms of compost for the whole planet, you know.

I think we're all sort of imprisoned by - or at least bound to - the choices we make... You want to say no at the right time and you want to say yes more sparingly.

I don't feel like it's pressure. It's more of an obligation - not to entertain or be funny, but to have a certain levity. I mean, there's got to be a lightness in your leg. You have to be as light as you can be, and you don't have to be weighted down, stuck in your emotions and stuck in your body, stuck in your head. You just want to try and elevate something.

All parties are good.

[My brother] lived in a dry gulch where the world of socks and shoes became extremely fascinating, and he felt that everyone needs a good pair of socks, and why not limit his gift giving to something that everybody needs? He thought that there was something humorous about it. So he gives socks.

When you did the job, you thought you were just trying to amuse your friends who are all on the job. I'm just trying to make the sound guy laugh, the script supervisor. A movie like Caddyshack, I can walk on a golf course and some guy will be screaming entire scenes at me and expecting me to do it word for word with him. It's like, 'Fella, I did that once. I improvised that scene. I don't remember how it goes'. But I'm charmed by it. I'm not like, 'Hey, knock it off'. It's kind of cool.

The money thing is, the sort of Elvis Presley thing of buying you mother car is great, that's very good. My mother has learned how to spend money.

That's the reason I'm not the one that's dead because the attraction of the fast life is very powerful.

Most people, when they talk fast, they get flat.

Eh, it's not that attractive to have a plan. I know that if I ever feel that I need to make a funny movie, I’ll figure out how to write one. I’ll get it done. If I ever get some ambition, I’m gonna get some shit done.

The truth is, anybody that becomes famous is an ass for a year and a half. You've got to give them a year and a half, two years. They are getting so much smoke blown, and their whole world gets so turned upside down, their responses become distorted. I give everybody a year or two to pull it together because, when it first happens, I know how it is.

Why would you get up there and bore people? I never have figured that out. These people are supposedly in the entertainment industry, and they finally get up there to that podium and they become the most boring people in the world.

You know how funerals are not for the dead, they’re for the living? Bachelor parties are not for the groom, they’re for the uncommitted.

I knew that's where I was going. I knew we were going to Italy. You couldn't make this movie in America at this price. I knew it was going to be big. I knew there was going to be a ship involved and that there was going to be a set as big as the ship. I thought, well, here we go. But I knew that was where he was headed. He had been going this way for some time. All directors, once they have some success, they want to spend a whole heck of a lot of money. (Something else can't hear.)

I don't really read the reviews, but I remember one a long time ago I read that said that I had a face like a potato.

I wanted to be a doctor once upon a time, but it turns out you've got to study, and that wasn't going to happen. I had no idea what I was going to do. I had trouble holding jobs because they want you to be on time. That wasn't going to work.

Well it's hard to be yourself, it's the hardest job there is.

I act like a jerk sometimes.

You’ll never be good if you don’t know that you are.

I'm just an obnoxious guy who can make it appear charming, that's what they pay me to do.

I smell varmint poontang. And the only good varmint poontang is dead varmint poontang, I think.

Different vodkas have different effects. Some make you feel a little... poly-lingual. Some make you feel like you want to talk back to someone who's giving you a hard time. Some make you feel like lifting kettle bells.

When I feel like I'm stuck, I do something - not like I'm Mother Teresa or anything, but there's someone that's forgotten about in your life, all the time. Someone that could use an 'Attaboy' or a 'How you doin' out there.

The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

I will be in Orlando during the atheist convention to do my best to counter the assaults upon Christ of the atheists. I also plan on running a large newspaper ad in the Orlando Sentinel addressed to the atheists and warning the Orlando area of the atheists' vile plans for their children.

Zombies dont mess with other zombies.

I didn't get into this position by being like a stiff sitting on the set in a folding chair. I did it by walking around on the streets and stirring things up.

We're creating a TV show of Scrooge, starring Jamie Farr, with Buddy Hackett as Scrooge. We're shooting in this Victorian set for weeks, and Hackett is pissed all the time, angry that he's not the center of attention, and finally we get to the scene where we've gotta shoot him at the window, saying, "Go get my boots," or whatever. The set is stocked with Victorian extras and little children in Oliver kind of outfits, and the director says, "All right, Bud - just give it whatever you want." And Hackett goes off on a rant. Unbelievably obscene.

You cannot pray them out of hell.

Now, for some of you it doesn't matter. You were born rich and you're going to stay rich. But here's my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it. Thank you.

Morocco is the greatest. I should be getting money from the Moroccans because I'm just telling everyone that it's a wonderful place to go.

When I work, my first relationship with people is professional. There are people who want to be your friend right away. I say, "We're not gonna be friends until we get this done. If we don't get this done, we're never going to be friends, because if we don't get the job done, then the one thing we did together that we had to do together we failed."

I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over?

I would jump into the middle of the street and say, "excuse me, there's a Mercedes that's got to get through here." And I would push people out of the way, "get out of the way! Let him through!" Smacking their cars and stuff. Just like, "whack" and you just jump into it.

We still have to put some cherry syrup on it, and then we can eat it

I've got kids and that's important. It's funny, you think that there's an expiration date on them and there just isn't.

There's definitely a lot of trash that comes with the prize of being famous. It's a nice gift, but there's a lot of wrapping and paper and junk to cut through. Back then, when a movie came out and people saw you on the street, their reaction was so supercharged that it was scary. It would frighten other people. It used to really rattle me. I mean, everybody would love to have their clothes torn off by a mob of girls, but being screamed at is different.

I was at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards one year - they called me up when somebody canceled two days before the thing, and asked me to present some awards. So I went, and one of the funniest film moments I've ever had was when they introduced the New York film critics. They all stood up - motley isn't the word for that group. Everybody had some sort of vision problem, some sort of damage - I had to bury myself in my napkin.

The critics. When they're right, they're right for the wrong reasons. And they're usually wrong.

And when I told my sons I might be in City of Ember, they said, 'Oh! You're gonna be the mayor?' And I hadn't even read the script yet.

Mrs. O'Hair died horribly, a victim of the world she helped to shape. Without the Deity she fought so hard against, there is no right and wrong, increasingly people are ruled by their passions and humanity is a tragedy waiting to happen.

You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That's kind of what it's like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.

I try to be alert and available. I try to be available for life to happen to me.

Buddy Hackett [was] talking - this is Hackett, not me - about the Virgin Mary, a limerick sort of thing, and all these children and families ... the look of absolute horror. He's going on and on and on, and finally he stops. It's just total horror, and the camera's still rolling. You can hear it, sort of a grinding noise. And the director says, "Anything else, Bud?"

It's a lot of work to read a crummy script.

I don't believe that you can give the same performance every take. It's physically impossible, so why bother? If you don't do what is happening at that moment, then it's not real. Then you're holding something back.

I'm not an ungenerous person; I don't resent it. It's just sort of a head-scratcher.

I love the financing. It's fun to do studio movies, too. I think you should do both. You don't want to be this, "He's an independent film guy." It sounds like, "He makes his own dresses."

You had to keep the mood up; you had to keep the tempo up. You had to keep the feeling of, "Hey, we're doing something that's really exciting. It's fun being with these people." And the more fun you have, the better you do it.

If you have a good script, that's what gets you involved. It's harder to write a good screenplay than to find something.

People usually go through a bad period when they first get successful. You're new and you're hot and things go wrong.

Half of the people in this room are more dressed up than on any other day in the year, and the other half are more dressed down.

So far, I've only sailed in the Caribbean. I've sailed the Virgin Island and The Grenadines. I liked all that. We charted some really crummy boats in the Grenadines. That made for an exciting sailing trip (laughs) when everything goes well. When everything goes well. When sails rip, engines freeze up and you find there are organisms growing inside the diesel, it's terrible and amazing stuff.

The last thing I want is to be (in a film role) is obvious, direct and offensive.

I've retired a couple of times. It's great, because you can just say, 'Oh, I'm sorry. I'm retired.'

I'd like [Santa Claus] to give Wes Anderson, the director, enough money in his next budget for an aerial shot - just a little copter shot. He really wanted this one helicopter shot, and Disney wouldn't give him the money. Just wouldn't give him the money. Every day, he was talking to the studio about this helicopter shot.