Top 483 Quotes & Sayings by Clint Eastwood - Page 7

A lot of times people get to a certain age and they quit. I always felt sorry for the Frank Capras, the Billy Wilders, directors like that, because they quit in their sixties. Why would you quit? Think of the great work they could've done in their sixties, seventies, and on up.

I'm past doing one chin-up more than I did the day before. I just kind of do what I feel like.

You have to go with your instincts.

Libertarian: everyone leaves everyone else alone

Twenty-some states in the United States have statutes that say showing the nipples to children is oscene. That's the first thing we come into contact with when we arrive on this palnet: a woman's breasts!

A Love like this happens but once in a lifetime

A man's just gotta know his limits

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 it's very important.

Casting a film is to me one of the most important things next to the writing. If you cast it properly everything takes place very easily. If you cast it improperly you're fighting an uphill battle.

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.

I like the inspiration of the first take.

I'm so glad for the dozens of times I haven't listened along the way.

I found out that a lot of my liberal friends weren't liberal because they weren't liberal about approaching anybody else's ideas, or at least standing for it. They started getting really animalistic about, "I can't even associate with this guy. He's stupid. He's an idiot."

When anybody gives you an award, it could be wrong. You’ve just got to bear that it mind and go ahead and enjoy it. Like Morgan says, it’s a pat on the back, so great you’ll take it and then move on.

I always revered people that I thought had an idea and proceeded through with it. I guess I've been that way since the day I called my father and told him I was going to study acting and maybe try to see if I could do well with that, and he told me: "Don't do that. You don't want to do that, that's just dream stuff. Get a legitimate job and move forward."

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

I believe that everybody, whether you believe in the afterlife or the chance of a near-death experience and you come back and you see someone [on the other side] - whether that has happened or not, I don't know, but certainly everyone has thought about it at some point or another in time. It's a fantasy that if there is anything out there like that, it would be just terrific, but that remains to be seen.

My father died very suddenly at sixty-three. Just dropped dead. For a long time afterward, I'd ask myself, Why didn't I ask him to play golf more? Why didn't I spend more time with him? But when you're off trying to get the brass ring, you forget and overlook those little things. It gives you a certain amount of regret later on, but there's nothing you can do about it. So you just forge on.

I've done a few special effects movies in my life, so I've gotten that out of my system.

Music does have a very special place in my heart. I enjoy it very much. I suppose it is my first love and I do a lot of it. It seems to be when you are making a project it inspires you sometimes to jot down something that you think fits the situation.

What I think the mentor gets is the great satisfaction of helping somebody along, helping somebody take advantage of an opportunity that maybe he or she did not have.

To me cinema can be a much more friendly world if there's a lot of things to choose from.

Every man has got to know his limitations.

Pose? I don't pose. What am I? Paris Hilton or something?

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

Most people who'll remember me, if at all, will remember me as an action guy, which is okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But there will be a certain group which will remember me for the other films, the ones where I took a few chances. At least, I like to think so.

I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?

After directing awhile, you get an instinct about it, but you have to be able to trust your own feelings. Invariably, two-thirds of the way through a film, you say, "Jeezus, is this a pile of crap! What did I ever see in it in the first place?" You have to shut off your brain and forge ahead, because by that time you're getting so brainwashed. Once I commit myself to a film I commit myself to that ending, whatever the motivations and conclusions are.

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.

If a person is confident enough in the way they feel, whether it's an art form or whether it's just in life, it comes off---you don't have anything to prove; you can just be who you are.

The main thing is, you just want to have your place in history. You hope that people will look back on it in 15, 20, 30 and beyond years, and say, "That was an exciting film."

That's why I don't rehearse a lot and why I shoot a lot immediately. I have ideas of where I'd like to take the character, but we both end up going together.

If you read any of the biographies on J. Edgar Hoover, you find that they contradict each other more than they agree. Often times, they're often told from a political perspective.

None of the pictures I take a risk in cost a lot, so it doesn't take much for them to turn a profit. We don't deal in big budgets. We know what we want and we shoot it and we don't waste anything. I never understand these films that cost twenty, thirty million dollars when they could be made for half that. Maybe it's because no one cares. We care.

The reason I don't retire is that I learn something new every day. The brain has to be exercised the same as the rest of the body. It's about expanding, constantly pushing yourself.

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.

Am I aging? The pros and the cons? Well, you know a lot more, at least until the time you start forgetting it all. Actually, aging can be a fun process, to some degree.

Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.

I always felt blessed that I was able to make a living in a profession [acting] that not a lot of people can make a living at, and I was able to do something I liked, rather than be in a job that I hated.

What do you want me to tell Romney? I can't tell him to do that. I can't tell him to do that to himself. You're crazy. You're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden.

If you cast a film incorrectly, then you're going to be fighting an uphill battle.

I never considered myself a cowboy, because I wasn`t. But I guess when I got into cowboy gear I looked enough like one to convince people that I was.

Listen, punk. To me you're nothin' but dogshit, you understand? And a lot of things can happen to dogshit. It can be scraped up with a shovel off the ground. It can dry up and blow away in the wind. Or it can be stepped on and squashed. So take my advice and be careful where the dog shits ya!

Buzzards got to eat, same as the worms.

I never expect anything. I am always amazed at why anybody goes to any movie or why anybody doesn't go to any movie. Any movie you make, you make it because you're hoping somebody wants to see it, but you never know.

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

I've got to learn French because I've been going there for years and still, the only words I know are the swear words.

I can't do that to myself...

I'd been trying to retire to the back of the camera for quite a few years. And then, in 1970, when I first started directing, I if I could pull this off, I can some day just move in back of the camera and stay there.

If you can make a good picture that actually has some substance, that's doubly good nowadays 'cause most everybody else is trying to address how many CGI plates we're gonna do, what little being is gonna come in from another asteroid.

If you get a certain amount of notoriety for doing something, and you can stick to that type of project for the rest of your life and make a decent living, I think you still have a responsibility to stretch. Flexibility is what keeps you alive.

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

I have a small child. Being a parent takes a lot of time. People always ask me, "What movies have you watched lately?" I tell them, "Finding 'Nemo' ... 'Shrek'.

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

If you feel like you've got something to offer you should do it while the iron's hot.

I always like to try different things, different genres; stories that have a dramatic element and can generate conflict which I find appealing; where the characters have to overcome obstacles. That kind of thing is challenging.

Are you going to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?

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.

When you hang a man, you better look at him.

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.