Top 483 Quotes & Sayings by Clint Eastwood - Page 3

I like a drama.

I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

There has to be something in every role that interests you.

I still work out on a daily basis.

In the Bay Area, there was a resurgence of Dixieland jazz in the '40s - there was the Frisco Jazz Band, and Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band.

I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.

It's always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don't try to play younger than I really am.

I've had moments when I've thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there's some vibration, some connection.

Every story has its demands.

You can't stop everything from happening. But we've gotten to a point where we're certainly trying. If a car doesn't have four hundred air bags in it, then it's no good.

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.

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

On 'Mystic River,' I had to cut my salary and everyone else's to get it made.

At the major studios, you see people wanting to remake a TV series, wanting to make a sequel.

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don't want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you're not performing at your best.

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.

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don't have a toy, they'll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.

In 'Changeling,' I tried to show something you'd never see nowadays - a kid sitting and looking at the radio. Just sitting in front of the radio and listening. Your mind does the rest.

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

Hoover was a patriot in his heart, but he definitely exceeded his power.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I'd eventually run out of steam on that, and that would've been the end of it.

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.

In 'Gran Torino,' I play a guy who's racially offensive. But he learned. It shows that you're never too old to learn and embrace people that you don't understand to begin with. It seems like nobody else got that message, I guess.

I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair.

You hear about actors being late and all that sort of stuff, but you never find that with an actor who's directed, because an actor who's directed understands all the problems your production is going through.

I'm not afraid to look bad on the screen.

I tend to believe that audiences are relatively well-balanced people.

I do believe in self-help.

They've got this crazy actor who's 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they're probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

'Unforgiven' is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, 'This is great, but I'd like to do this when I'm older.' So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

I loved the fact that Obama is multi-racial. I thought that was terrific, as my wife is the same racial make-up.

As long as somebody finances you, can make a film and get it seen any place and in any language; then, hopefully, it's a success.

I want the troops from Great Britain and the U.S. to be successful, but by the same token, Afghanistan has always been a screw-up.

I'm not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it's almost like we're living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it's like a big reality show.

I'm a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.

I like working. That's when I'm feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

'Mystic River' just smelled interesting to me. So I read it and liked it right away. Even the dialogue in it was great.

If a person doesn't change, there's something really wrong with him.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

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.

If I'd had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

Politicians love regulating. That's part of the whole power structure.

It would be great to be 105 and still making films.

If you're really satisfied with your position on something, you just say, 'Hey;' you just very calmly present something.

I've had no problem harnessing anger.

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.

I guess I'm living in the present more than the past.

I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.

Why am I a star? It can't be because of looks.

Nobody looks like they did when they were 20, so why not take advantage of the fact that you're changing, emotionally as well as physically?

Actors know, with me they aren't going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

Let's put it this way: there wouldn't be much point in me attending a high-school reunion now because there wouldn't be anybody there. We'd struggle to raise a quorum.

My mother always told me it wasn't polite to ask what people make.

Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

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

I liked Vittorio De Sica a lot, and I got to work with him once in a segment movie. He was a great director. He was a very charismatic character and a guy I watched a lot when he was directing.

I don't really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.