Top 250 Quotes & Sayings by William Shatner

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Canadian actor William Shatner.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
William Shatner

William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the Enterprise in the second pilot of the first Star Trek television series to his final appearance as Admiral Kirk in the seventh Star Trek feature film, Star Trek Generations (1994).

Things people say strike me as amusing, and I am prone to saying out loud what everybody's thinking.
I was always working. Maybe you weren't aware of the movies I was making, or the television I was doing, or the shows I was creating, or the books I was writing; there have been thirty. But I have always been solidly at work, running as fast as I can.
You know, the process of making a documentary is one of discovery, and like writing a story, you follow a lead and that leads you to something else and then by the time you finish, the story is nothing like you expected.
I love technology. Matches, to light a fire, is really high tech. The wheel is really one of the great inventions of all time. Other than that, I am an ignoramus about technology.
In entertainment, whether it's movies or television or whatever, I'm a great audience, but I don't remember the names of the people I've seen or the groups that I've heard.
If saving money is wrong, I don't want to be right! — © William Shatner
If saving money is wrong, I don't want to be right!
There's an ecstasy about doing something really good on film: the composition of a shot, the drama within the shot, the texture... It's palpable.
My beautiful wife is dead. She meant everything to me. Her laughter, her tears and her joy will remain with me the rest of my life.
I don't know how I got to this point but it must be as a result of everything that has come before so if I were to change something, I might not be at this point now.
Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell! I rest my case.
But if you want to know the truth, the weirdest thing that has happened has been my discovery that people who attend the conventions are filled with love.
The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling.
All I know is that I am constantly intrigued by something I'm doing.
When I did the film Generations, in which the character died, I felt like a guest for the first time. That made me very sad.
I enjoyed reading all the classic authors like Isaac Asimov and Bradbury.
If we can clean up our world, I'll bet you we can achieve warp drive.
I've been in that angst of loneliness, where you're really alone in the universe, except for the dog. — © William Shatner
I've been in that angst of loneliness, where you're really alone in the universe, except for the dog.
Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life.
My fear is dying badly, through illness or injury. But what a glorious demise it would be to burn up in space.
Spencer Tracy was a man who did very much what I do on a set, and that is, he comes down and he does his job, and then he goes back to his dressing room.
I think the supernatural is a catch-all for everything we don't understand about the vast other parts of life that we cannot perceive.
A series is filled with compromises.
I didn't realize that, in doing a documentary, there is this process of discovery. It's not like a film or a play with a set script. It sort of reveals itself.
We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions.
I love the concept of togetherness and the entwinement of marriage.
You have to create your life. You have to carve it, like a sculpture.
The only subject I know anything about is myself and I don't know that too clearly.
Here's something pompous - you take your day and artistically create it, so every moment has an artistic flavor.
The basic quality that any great story must have is a story that illustrates the human condition.
Getting that audience approval is always a question mark, and it's always that flag that flutters in front of you.
Why does the lizard stick his tongue out? The lizard sticks its tongue out because that's the way its listening and looking and tasting its environment. It's its means of appreciating what's in front of it.
It's very easy to say no to leaving the house.
I know very little about the viral, electronic world, but I use Twitter to communicate not only information that I think some of the fans want to hear about but also ideas.
Every piece of entertainment is made with the idea that 'This is going to be terrific' and 'This is the best thing I've ever done' and then it hits the public and then the public tells you whether it's good or bad.
Divorce is probably as painful as death.
In my proudest moments, I think I had a real hand in the creative force of making 'Star Trek.' But most of the time, I don't think about it.
I watch movies and sports. I can count on the fingers of my hand the number of times I have watched an hour show. I never watch a half-hour show, and I never watch myself.
I'm gonna reveal something to you that's going to come as a shock: If you're a stupid young man, you're usually a stupid old man. Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes.
I've been breeding Dobies for years. Almost won the breed in Westminster at one time.
I don't think in terms of God.
The essence of paint ball is the fact that when you get hit by a ball full of paint, it hurts just enough to say, 'Ow, I gotta get out of the way,' but not enough to say, 'I quit.'
I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work. — © William Shatner
I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work.
Voice acting is very interesting, I've done several animated projects, and you have to make the voice reflect the character and try and do as much with a word as you can with a look in a live-action film.
Regret is the worst human emotion. If you took another road, you might have fallen off a cliff. I'm content.
I'm surfing the giant life wave.
How do I stay so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways.
It's irksome to read about someone I don't recognize. It frightens me.
When I'm interviewing somebody I don't work from prepared questions.
I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.
The longer I go about living, I see it's the relationship that is most meaningful.
If someone criticizes my acting, they may be right.
Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes. — © William Shatner
Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes.
There's a joy and a pain about directing where the dreams you have are becoming concrete but the attention to detail, the need for time is such that it's overwhelming at times, and the stream of responsibility.
I am not a Starfleet commander, or T.J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-1701, or own a phaser. And I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock.
Success should always be just beyond your grasp.
Success is different for everyone; everybody defines it in their own way, and that's part of what we do in 'Close Up', finding what it was each person wanted to achieve and what their willingness to sacrifice for that was.
I think that prog rock is the science fiction of music. Science fiction speculates on what the future might be and look like and how we'll get there, and yet there's always a central theme of humanity, or there should be. Progressive rock has the same concept of exploration into the parts of the music world that hasn't been explored.
My plan has always been to return to Broadway every 50 years.
This is my saddest story: In grade school, they would have us open our Valentine's cards and read them out loud. I always sent cards to myself because nobody else did.
With three kids, it was always very, very tight, and it was always a scramble for what was my next job. So I learned never to go into debt because I don't want those monthly payments to preoccupy my thoughts.
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