Top 483 Quotes & Sayings by Clint Eastwood - Page 6

That's the secret to a movie career - just keeping an open mind.

Today, the only thing Hollywood swears by is space adventures because that's what goes over well. For my part, I trust my instinct and I make the films I believe in. If the public follows me, that's wonderful. If it doesn't follow, "c'est la vie.

I'm thinking, That's Barack Obama. He doesn't go to work. He doesn't go down to Congress and make a deal. What the hell's he doing sitting in the White House? If I were in that job, I'd get down there and make a deal. Sure, Congress are lazy bastards, but so what? You're the top guy. You're the president of the company. It's your responsibility to make sure everybody does well. It's the same with every company in this country, whether it's a two-man company or a two-hundred-man company... . And that's the pussy generation - nobody wants to work.

Acting to me is a very organic art form and you just go and do it. And I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed. Let me bring in what I want to bring in, and if something's wrong, just tell me about it and I'll make some corrections or adjustments. And that's what I do.

I always thought what an interesting idea because almost everybody's fascinated by the perpetrator of a crime; very few people study what happens to people for the rest of their lives, and how it affects not only that particular character but other characters around him as well.

I am sort of anti-hunting. I don't put down what anyone wants to do, but it seems to me that killing a creature for fun is not a progressive idea.

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.

The thing that haunts a man the most is what he isn't ordered to do.

Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant.

Everybody has certain things they wish they hadn't done in life. They wish they hadn't kicked their dog when they were ten or something. There are many things you can go back and have regrets about. I don't like doing that. But by the same token I do agree that when you get to a certain stage in life, you change. And you should change.

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous.

I love every aspect of the creation of motion pictures and I guess I am committed to it for life.

You have to trust your instincts. There is a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it.

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.

I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that's always amazing to me.

Let's take the work seriously, and not ourselves seriously.

If a person is constantly evolving, constantly reading new material and being exposed to new material and growing in life, then you're becoming, hopefully, a more intelligent and well-rounded individual. If you're not then something's wrong and you're sliding back in the other direction.

People have lost their sense of humor. In former times, we constantly made jokes about different races.

Great stories teach you something. That's one reason I haven't slipped into some sort of retirement: I always feel like I'm learning something new.

Every once and a while somebody writes a script, but even regardless of what age you are, most of the actors would all agree that it's all based upon material and the material has got to spark with you. It may be great material but you think it's great material for somebody else. Or it's great material and I'm perfect for it. So, you just have to make that judgment and if you feel in the mood to do it.

Once you finish a film, it doesn't belong to you anymore - it belongs to the audience to interpret it the way they feel like interpreting.

I guess it's like trying to put through the flat tax, which is probably my favorite one of all.... if we did pass it, all of a sudden, what do you have? You have the whole tax system run by a little old lady on a home computer, doing the work of all these thousands of bureaucrats and accountants. Passing that would be amazing, wouldn't it?

Hollywood, as everyone knows, glamorizes physical courage. . . . if I had to define courage myself, I wouldn't say it's about shooting people. I'd say it's the quality that stimulates people, that enables them to move ahead and look beyond themselves.

Pay attention to the work you want to do and everything'll work out fine. If you're in it for the ego, you might be successful but at a limited level.

I'm just a kid. I've got a lot of stuff to do yet.

If you don't pay attention to history, you're destined to repeat it.

Don Siegel last advice to me was 'Don't short yourself.' He said the tendency is when an actor's directing is to kind of you want to work on everybody else but you're going to short yourself. He said, take the time to do a good job with yourself so that you're satisfied with it.

Once a man has some money, peace begins to sound good to him.

I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed.

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.

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.

I'm a firm believer in research, but I'm also a firm believer in utilizing the instincts that are within your soul or in your body or in your stomach, wherever they reside.

No, I don't have to practice that grunt. You just do it. Once you're in character, you're in character. You don't sit there purposely thinking, Well, I'll grunt here, or I'll groan there.

I don't look at my life too much. I'm always looking forward, not backward.

I had three points I wanted to make. That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

At Waco, was there really an urgency to get those people out of the compound at that particular time? Was the press going to make it look heroic for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? At Ruby Ridge, there was one guy in a cabin at the top of the mountain. Was it necessary for federal agents to go up there and shoot a 14-year-old in the back and shoot a woman with a child in her arms? What kind of mentality does that?

Things always look different from higher up.

The cruelty of nature is you have to work out harder when you get older ... It should be the other way around: Work out hard when you're a kid you should be able to coast when you get older. But unfortunately you have to do more to stay in the same position.

I had one well known director who kept saying, "Now Clint, this is what ...." And I'd say, "I know. I read the script. I'm the one who cast you as the director. Let me show you and you'll correct me if I'm wrong."

I don't wanna need you because I can't have you.

Politicians have to make unpopular decisions. Schwarzenegger is going to understand the nature of his job. I wish him good luck, he's going to need it. It's going to be difficult for him.

You know I've had people come up and ask me to sign their guns. Sign my name on gun handles and holsters and stuff. I've done it once or twice for law enforcement officials, but when people do that -- and there have been quite a few of them lately -- I always tell them no. I don't want to do that. I don't want my name on that and I hope you use this gun, whatever its purpose is, I hope it's used wisely.

Writing is a creative art form and the acting and directing is more of an interpretive art form.

I was kind of a little disappointed when they started building a competition between Marty (Martin Scorsese) and me. I have the greatest respect for him and all the films he's done over the years.

I could be the driver - the Uber guy saying, "I used to be in films years ago... ."

When I used to be a contract player in 1954 at Universal, I wasn't getting good roles. I was getting one-liners, and then I'd be gone. But I'd hang around; I'd watch guys. And when I had days off, which was most days, I'd go down and watch other sets while they were shooting. Watch Joan Crawford or whomever. Just watch how they worked and how the director handled them. I didn't know anything about making movies, and there's a lot to learn.

If anybody asks me what I attribute the longevity of my career to, then I say it's because I was never satisfied with being a cowboy in the plains of Spain and later I was never satisfied with just playing a detective in San Francisco, and constantly just pushing the envelope.

When you're making a movie, you can't think anybody will ever see it. You've just got to make a movie for the values it has. The greatest films were made because someone really wanted to make them. And, hopefully, the audience will show up, too.

Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time. That's the secret to life, really: never stop learning. It's the secret to career. I'm still working because I learn something new all the time. It's the secret to relationships. Never think you've got it all.

Everybody's got a right to be a sucker ... once.

At certain points if your life, you like doing more. I'm not sure what causes it or for what reasons; you just do it.

I'm suffering from oxygen deprivation. It's overwhelming watching your career go by.

There's a lot of young guys coming along, but I'd like to say to the various financiers, don't forget the senior guys. The senior guys and gals are there, willing to do their best work for you.

I guess a great movie would be one that has the most great moments in it.

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

I've always told my son Scott the same thing: Don't rush into anything, because there's gonna be a lot of fish in the sea. You can be one of the people that's lucky enough not to become a loser two and three and four times over like people do, just by being a little more patient.

I think it is more important to tell a story rather than follow any trend; that is a less bold way to go. If you do that [follow trends] you are just trying to ride on the coat tails of someone else's success.

I take vitamins daily, but just the bare essentials not what you'd call supplements. I try to stick to a vegan diet heavy on fruit, vegetables, tofu, and other soy products.

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.

Everybody always feels that they're right even if they're wrong and that's what a whole actor's career is built around rationalizing your way into whatever character you're playing.