Top 483 Quotes & Sayings by Clint Eastwood - Page 8

Conflict is the basis of drama. I guess that goes back as long as time has existed as far as mankind is concerned, dating back to the Greek tragedies or the Old Testament. And violence is a form of conflict, so whether that's catharsis or whether that has some socially damaging effect on audiences - I suppose that would just depend.

Having the security of being in a series week in, week out gives you great flexibility; you can experience with yourself, try a different scene different ways. If you make a mistake one week, you can look at it and say, 'Well, I won't do that again,' and you're still on the air next week.

We were dealing with films that had very prominent roles for women and I felt I was actually contributing something. Many people had wondered why I would want to do a film where the best part was a woman's part. But I wasn't afraid to be the lesser intelligence in a film.

It's hard to tell what will stimulate curiosity nowadays because looking at some of the things that do excite people, you kind of go, "Ohh, OK. So this hasn't a chance." But we made it anyway. I think if people see the picture, they'll find a lot of parallels to today, ever since 9/11 and everything, that kind of fear that's going on in disturbance of the country.

When I look back on my life, I don't have regrets about what I didn't do. If I'd become a musician, it could have ruined my life.

You have to go with your instincts. I remember when I was about to make "Fistful of Dollars" a big article came out that said, "Italian Westerns are finished." I said, "Swell." Then, of course, the film came out, and it did something. I'm so glad for the dozens of times I haven't listened along the way.

I don't know how everybody else feels, but I just long for reality rather than these made-up things.

I think as you get older, you find you can play more things because you're moving to a different category. You play a certain thing as a younger man, playing action roles like I did. Then I moved out, and I kept trying to do different things all the time.

I think the only way it has influenced me is to cause me to try to branch out and do other things. So that people will know that I am reaching out and trying to be a little more versatile. So they realize he is not a "Dirty Harry." He doesn't advocate martial law or mayhem -it's a character.

I don't believe in pessimism.

As you get older, you change certain things.

I'm just naturally gravitating towards different things. As you mature, different subject matters. And as you're older, you can't play as many parts, or you shouldn't be playing the parts that you used to play. But also there's the opportunity to play parts that you couldn't have.

Everybody wants to make something they think is a surefire winner, though nobody knows what a surefire winner is, in my opinion.

I've never been on a movie where they play five-dollar Friday. I must not be very observant.

At some point in your fife, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there's nothing really to talk about. And I think we're at a point now where a lot of older women take better care of themselves, compared to the 1940s and '50s when women were programmed to figure it's all over after 30.

I like a drama. And I think that's the basis of good films, or good plays, is to have a nice drama.

You get to a certain age and you're just glad to be there. I don't know what to add to that. It's fun. You have to be a realist, so you try to look for roles that are within the age you are.

The best part of aging in this business is losing that obsession about work and being able to spend a little more time with family.

Don't look at me like I've gotten old or something like that.

For a man, once you've sired your pups, you're done.

I don't watch a lot of films. I'm usually involved in making them.

There's something about the first time an actor runs the material over his or her face you know when they kind of run it through their eyes and you see the thing and there is little imperfections in it and not every line is delivered perfectly, and it doesn't have that mechanical feeling.

If the director's a communist, whatever, he's a communist. All I care is that he directs. For the actor, the same thing. All you really care is that he comes in and performs.

I just feel that I enjoy the work more than I ever have... or just as much certainly... I enjoy making films behind the camera equally to making them in front of the camera on all those years. I just enjoy it, that's all. I've been lucky enough to work in a profession that I have really liked and so I figured I'd just continue until someone hits me over the head and says "get out".

I was forty the first time I directed. I formed a company in 1967, looking to the future. My dad taught me that whatever you do, do it well. Be the best at what you can do for that particular job in life. That always resonated with me.

I don't have any great pickup lines. I was never an extrovert, so I always had to have someone meet me halfway. If she was interested, we'd come together, and if not ... When I became a movie actor and became well-known, it took care of itself. Maybe that's why I became an actor.

I've lived through the shooting of movie, the editing and every other process along the way, so it's not for me to really judge it. I'll probably look at it again five years from now to get a fresh feel for it.

If you approach a film with the feeling that you are going to have some impact on society then you're liable to get carried away with yourself. Alfred Hitchcock once told me, when I was analyzing a lot of things about his pictures, "Clint, you must remember, it's only a movie.

Scott Eastwood always came in and did a good job. And he's now graduated to better roles, and the chicks are all calling and asking where Scott is. They used to ask where I was. Now they're going, "What about Scott?"

Acting is an animal thing, not an intellectual thing.

You change as the years go by. The more knowledge you get, the more things change in your life and circumstances change.

To me, life is like the back nine in golf. Sometimes you play better on the back nine. You may not be stronger, but hopefully you're wiser. And if you keep most of your marbles intact, you can add a note of wisdom to the coming generation.

The reason I still work at this stage of life is because I enjoy learning something new each day.

A lot of people when they retire, they just expire. It happens to men more than women. Women usually have great interest in the family, because the family's always growing and they're always coming to the rescue.

My wife and I are both Libertarian; she was a Democrat and I was a Republican, and we both met in the middle somewhere.

It's not about you. It's about them.

I do believe if one keeps busy it's very good for a person. In fact, people are always rushing into retirement and we read in Europe that people there are talking about their retirement age and moving it to 67 or something. Well, back when they started retirement funds and everything, the average age was 70 or 60, and then all of a sudden now it's 80, and so. [...] And so you keep in shape, you keep yourself mentally in shape. And if you keep yourself mentally in shape, chances are physically it will follow suit.

[FBI] philosophy is "Go ahead and make the story you want to make, and hopefully we'll love it." So that's that.

I don't necessarily look for dark themes; they just seem to appear.

When you think of a particular director, you think you would have liked to be with them on one particular film and not necessarily on some other one.

The story [for the western genre] is everything. Whether it's a book or a screenplay, the story drives everything. And if you just go out and try to make one by putting on boots and jumping on a horse and riding off... If you don't have the material, the characters and the things to overcome and conflicts that give life to drama, you don't have it.

As a movie actor, once you've become known, you're observed all the time so you don't get the chance to observe anymore. You still get a taste of life but it's not quite the same and there's something to be said for a more anonymous life.

[ J. Edgar]Hoover, I'm sure, felt that he was right in everything he did and even the things that we don't like about his character.

In America, instead of making the audience come to the film, the idea seems to be for you to go to the audience. They come up with the demographics for the film and then the film is made and sold strictly to that audience.

All I know is there's thousands of people in the Academy and a lot of them, the majority of them, haven't won Oscars.A lot of people are crying, I guess.

Hitchcock used to believe that if there were three or four memorable scenes in a film that would be enough to drive it, but I don't know if that's true or not.

The only reason I ever thought about retiring from the front part of the camera as opposed to the back is sometimes you think, "How many roles are there for someone my age?"

We don't even know who's in the Academy.

I just don't want to copy the current trends or do movies for teenagers. I want people to get more out of movies.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me. The horse is out of the barn... 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 have great respect for the FBI, and I know that there have been some rumors lately that the FBI was disenchanted because of what we were doing in story, or doing a certain take: that's not true. Actually the FBI was tremendously enthusiastic about us doing [ J. Edgar Hoover ] film.

Acting gets into your blood, after so many years, and I just always like revisiting it. It's fun to meet new people and watch them coming along, at different stages of their careers.

When you're an actor, you're so busy: people are always coming up to you and pulling your collar, making sure that things fit, brushing your hair and you're always being yanked up, so finally when you're behind a camera, you're just a slob.

With people in high office, the old - you go into the extreme, which is absolute power and absolute power corrupts.

I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ]

If you've done what you intended and if nobody tampered with it, then it's yours. And if people don't like it, then they just don't agree with you on that subject matter, and that's life.

Everybody puts importance in money on a film set.

I don't write. I usually look for material by other people. Sometimes I change things or adapt things but I don't write from scratch. I wish I had that ability.

Historically, actors have been made very famous for roles that were something that was far - - Richard Widmark comes to mind (playing Tommy Udo in "Kiss of Death") or something like that, where you do some famous role and everybody imitates you for the rest of your life. But obviously it's much more fun to play something you're not than it is to play something you are.

There are so many parallels in society today [with era of J. Edgar Hoover ] that you can use, whether it's the head of a studio or the head of an organization, a major newspaper, a major factory or company, of people who stay too long, maybe, and overstay their usefulness.