Top 73 Quotes & Sayings by Burt Reynolds

I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.

The stupidest thing I ever did was turn down 'Terms of Endearment' to do 'Cannonball Run II.' Jim Brooks wrote the part of the astronaut for me. Taking that role would have been a way to get all the things I wanted.

I realized very quickly that the public has a perfect right to tell you what they want to see.

Most guys with toupees overcompensate. They want too much hair. They end up piling it high, looking like a weird flower.

John Boorman was the best director I've ever had.

Sometimes I'm surprised people even know who I am.

There are three stages of an actor's career: Young, Old, and 'You look good!'

I hate prejudice of any kind, whether it be color or sexual preference.

You can only hold your stomach in for so many years.

When you crash and burn, you have to pick yourself up and go on and hope to make up for it.

If I was as tough as I'm made out to be in movies, I wouldn't have to worry.

I've always gotten along well with Texans. You've got to.

I thought 'Deliverance' was a very good film. But it didn't have the success financially that 'Smokey and the Bandit' did, although that film made more money than 'Star Wars' in the first week.

It's always possible to spend more money.

I'm just trying desperately to hang on to my true friends. Like Jon Voight. We laugh all the time at how stupid we are.

People don't understand the analogy of football and acting, but there's a great deal of it that's the same. You get dressed in the room, and you think you've got it all prepared, and later on in the game you wish you had put on more pads 'cause they're just kicking the hell out of you. God almighty, I've been beat up by the best.

The moment you grab someone by the lapels, you're lost.

I haven't been somebody who's been smart about his money. There are a couple of actors who are quite brilliant with the way they've handled their money. But they're not very good actors.

I'm going to retire hopefully like Cary Grant did. I'll be on stage telling a story, everyone's going to applaud and laugh, and then I'll drop like a rock.

To be successful in business, you have to be ruthless.

Jay Leno is wonderful and a good friend, but it will always be the Carson show to a lot of people.

I don't take myself seriously, and I think the ones that do, there's some sickness with people like that.

If I hadn't been an actor, I would have been a coach, and I would have been a good one. All teaching is is communicating.

I sometimes will be very shut off from everybody. I can be very pettish and sometimes not available when you need me. At those times, I'm very selfish and worrying about my own problems.

I'm proud of 'Deliverance' because it was a very dangerous film to make, and they all said it couldn't be done, and we did it. And Jon Voight and I are now like brothers.

Frankly, it's embarrassing to have a house filled with giant portraits of yourself.

My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave.

Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done.

I'm not sure if I can swagger anymore, but I can limp with the best of them.

I felt good when I did a stunt, and if it was really dangerous - like if I got out on a horse or a bull that was rank, or jumped out of this building on a bag - I felt great.

I've tried very hard to be thought of as a serious actor.

Paul Newman is the personification of cool.

My acting is a bit like basketball. Most females in my films come off very well. I give great assist. And if I'm lucky, I even score.

Sometimes you have to lose yourself 'fore you can find anything.

Having done 300 television shows and almost 60 movies, I'm tired of having guys who are younger than some sandwiches I've had, telling me to turn left at the couch. There's no appreciation of actors and no sense of history.

I'm terrified of marriage. I'm terrified of not doing something so important and at the same time I think you shouldn't rush into these things.

If you hang onto something long enough, it will come back in style.. Like ME.

We got Sally Field onboard [in Smokey and the Bandit] and it changed the entire dynamic. About a third of the way into filming, I was in the car with Sally and there was this little moment where we kind of looked at each other, and then we both turned and looked over at Hal [Needham]. He gave us a thumbs up and said, "Yeah!" And we kind of knew there was some magic going on.

You get to a certain age, where you know you can't go over the wall, but I'll never get to the age where I can't go through it.

Money doesn't buy happiness. It buys great hookers - but not happiness.

The audience will always forgive you for being wrong and exciting, but never for being right and dull.

When an actor marries an actress they both fight for the mirror.

The best way not to fail again is to be absolutely positive that when you do it this time, you're going to do it right.

A fan is a fan is a friend no matter what current he/she/it operates on, AC or DC. Thanks for being one of mine.

You're not a man until your father says you're a man.

Florida is a very healing place.

Trans Am sales went up 70 percent after Smokey and the Bandit, and I was promised a free car every year for life by the Pontiac president.

I regret that I do not have the dignity of Ricardo Montalban, the class of Dean Martin, or the humor of Bill Cosby. I do have the heart of a lion.

That's a big responsibility, and the details obsess me. And, also, I no longer feel I have to do the Tonight Show every time I open my mouth. Twenty years ago, I told myself I'd rather direct than act, and it's taken me this long. You lose your passion in acting. You make too many mistakes. Maybe that's why I make so many movies; if you don't like this one, another one's opening on Tuesday. But then I spent six months of my life on 'At Long Last Love,' a picture nobody saw. I enjoyed making it, I learned from it, I grew, but that's too much time out of my life.

If you hold on to things long enough, they get back into style. Like me.

There are three stages of an actor's career. Young, old, and "You look good".

All of the younger actors keep coming up to me and asking me where all of the land mines are because they know I've stepped on them all.

I'm really much more like Phil Potter from [the 1979 film] Starting Over. People do think I'm the Bandit [from Smokey and the Bandit ], and I'm a lot more serious than that.

I'm paying the third highest alimony and child support in the world. And the only two ahead of me are sheiks.

In football you can make it if you've got the 'I'm-going-to-get-up-off-the-ground-and-kick-your-ass' attitude.

Women are my drugs and alcohol. When I'm involved with one woman, I'm involved with one woman. Period. But between romances, I am carnivorous.

There are no awards in Hollywood for being an idiot.

All you really have in the end are your stories.

I can tell a young person where the mines are, but he's probably going to step on them anyway.

The more the art dominated my life and my house, the more the house became a home.