Top 161 Quotes & Sayings by Paul Newman - Page 3

I certainly never expected to be a professional actor. I never expected to be in movies. I thought I would probably become a teacher.

I had no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

If you have no enemies, you have no character.

No sense in being a grifter if it's the same as being a citizen.

I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts.

I have an extraordinary attention span. I manage to juggle two or three different ideas at the same time, and that's probably, if I have a gift, that's probably the best gift that's given me.

Admit it. I'm the best you ever seen, Fats. I'm the best there is. And even if you beat me, I'm still the best.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so curious about me that they would want to read that I wear underwear shorts with green polka dots on them.

The only way we can give our children the best education in the world and prepare them for the next century is by funding the programs that serve them.

I can eat fifty eggs.

Almost everything I learned about being an actor came from those early years at the Actor's Studio.

I have taken roads that I wished I had not traveled on. And I'm traveling on some pretty exciting ones, too. Just hope when you get to that great racetrack in the sky, that the balance will tip slightly into those things that you'd be proud of.

There are many ingredients that go into making a film. It baffles me, what works and what doesn't.

It happens to everybody, horses, dogs, men. Nobody gets out of life alive.

You can't really appreciate anonymity until you've lost it. People say that's sour grapes, but it really isn't To be able to walk down the street without people paying attention to you is a real blessing and you lose it when you become an actor.

I'm a very competitive person. I always have been. And it's hard to be competitive about something as amorphous as acting. But you can be competitive on the track, because the rules are very simple and the declaration of the winner is very concise.

I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.

In racing, the fastest person wins. It is very simple.

I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary.

I'd done some acting in high school. Then I went to Kenyon College and got thrown in jail and kicked off the football team. Since I was determined not to study very much, I majored in theater the last two years. Got my degree in speech; they didn't actually have a degree in theater. I graduated at two o'clock in the afternoon, and at three-thirty I was on the train for Williams Bay, Wisconsin, for summer stock, and then I did winter stock.

Hollywood is a changing world these days. This is one of the things that ought to be changed.

There are a lot of drivers who can carry a car. It doesn't happen very often very successfully. I think it takes a certain amount of sensible bravery. It's no good to be brave and just keep crashing.

[Getting the truth in the New York Post has been as] difficult as finding a good hamburger in Albania.

Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.

Well, I'm not able to work anymore as an actor and still at the level I would want to ... you start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So, that's pretty much a closed book for me. And I'm grateful for the other things that have come into my life: grandkids, and restaurants and charity ... I've been doing it for 50 years. That's enough.

I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's no sense even trying to explain it. I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts, so I don't look at anything.

So you wound up with Apollo/If he's sometimes hard to swallow/Use this.

I think Hollywood is in love with sequels. If it's successful once, just jazz it up and shoot it out there again. I think it's unfortunate.

Well, the nice thing about animation, you don't even really have to account for yourself. All of the physical stuff that you work on as an actor, you just throw away.

I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.

So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

I was terrorized by the emotional requirements of being an actor. Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.

In the early days of films, the movie star in this country replaced royalty. They've been demoted since then but they're still treated as beings larger than life.

I am convinced that a person is entitled to as much privacy as he wants. It should be his privilege to keep certain areas of his life out of the newspapers.

I don't like gossip stories. Facts are okay. But when gossips begin making items, that's something else again.

I believe there can be dignity in the acting profession. And I think there ought to be more dignity in the publicity an actor gets.

I started my career giving a clinic in bad acting in the film, "The Silver Chalice," and now I'm playing a crusty old man who's an animated automobile [in "Cars"]. That's a creative arc for you, isn't it?

I will continue to get behind the wheel of a racing car as long as I am able. But that could all end tomorrow.

You discover a lot of things on your feet and if you don't have any rehearsal, then anything that happens on the screen is by accident.

It's born of sheer laziness. My signature dishes are salads, hamburgers and popcorn. That's not the kind of stuff that gets you an entry in the distinguished book of culinary records. Being known for great soufflé is one thing but a good hamburger? What would they say? "Yeah, he really knew how to put the cheese on."