Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Orson Bean - Page 2

It's never been written about, but before the blacklist of Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood Ten, there was a de facto blacklist by Communists in the movie industry, and there were a lot of them.

Young actors ask me for advice. They say, 'Should I get an agent?' I tell them, 'Don't worry about that. Act, act, act. Get into that production of 'The Three Sisters' in a church basement. Consider every audition a chance to act, even if it's just for three minutes. Just do it whenever and wherever you can.'

I make more than a handsome living doing voices for commercials; I hear myself all day on the tube.

The people who get bored and want to get out of a long-run aren't the people who actually like to act.

I like to work. I like to go every night and play a part.

I love Spike Jonze. He's brilliant.

I don't expect to be another Walt Disney, but I do get a terrific bang out of being able to say things with pictures. Maybe that means something deep and profound about me - but I doubt it.

I paid a price for being on game shows and that was not being taken seriously. But so what? I did what I did and I was glad. But it's a strange form of immortality.

We believe in satisfying our own needs but always considering others.

I never thought that I couldn't do what I set out to do. It wasn't from arrogance; it was from ignorance.

I made a decision a few years back to never again do anything professionally that I didn't want to do.

Well, I haven't done that many movies, but the best one was 'Being John Malkovich.'

I loved New York in the '50s.

My father was an odd stick. He was a member of MENSA and he was a uniformed yard cop for the Harvard police.

Old people come up to me and say, 'Are you still alive? I used to watch you on 'To Tell The Truth' when I was a kid.'

Part of me is nonhuman and eccentric, which is what a hobbit is, and I don't mind being eccentric.

I always identified with Frankenstein because as a kid, I never got the girl.

You know when I was a kid, I hated every day I was in school, from the kindergarten right through to my last day of high school.

I certainly have no plans to quit the United States.

Anything that's done correctly is easy.

Children can become self-reliant and self-disciplined by being free to do what they want to do.

I did a lot of TV work for more than 30 years in New York and L.A., but I would get on the stage whenever I could.

I knew people who were real Communists but never made it onto the blacklist and kept on working. There were also people reputed to be Communists who weren't.

I don't think that the theater should necessarily pay.

It's funny, I never watch TV. I watch Fox News.

Even I get fan mail.

A lot of people didn't know I was doing Broadway. They thought I was one of those guys who was famous for being famous. I was the one who sat next to Charles Nelson Reilly and said funny things.

TV and film are always slipping in political messages, not ones designed to bring us together but to divide us.

I just feel lucky; I just feel happy to be alive.

I was blacklisted and overnight my TV appearances dried up. Ed Sullivan called to cancel my appearance and said he'd help me when he could, and a year later he did. Only a few wackos wanted the blacklist. It was a protection racket.

I never cared what anyone thought about me.

Hollywood is very divisive.

I used to picture myself as the old guy eating the Early Bird Specials in the mall.

Advertising has always been part show biz.

Every restaurant in the world is owned by a Greek.

I don't believe most kids enjoy school at all, and that's a shameful waste, considering how curious and excited kids are to learn. They're naturally curious, full of wonder.

I mean, acting is so easy! I love it and I'm good at it.

The TV show I do ['Dr Quinn'] is the day job that enables me to work with this theater [Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble]. That's all I live for. That's what I care about. There's no dough in it. Nothing to do but lose money. But it's all from the heart, and that's why it's so much fun.

Bring me an order of escargots, but hold the slugs.

What do women want? A guy they can't drive crazy. There aren't many around. But they try. They can't help it, it's their nature.