Top 37 Quotes & Sayings by Ernest Borgnine

My mother made me do all the housework as a boy. I still do it, even in hotels.

Everything I do has a moral to it.

Writers used to make such wonderful pictures without all that swearing, all that cursing. And now it seems that you can't say three words without cursing. And I don't think that's right.

I don't care whether a role is 10 minutes long or two hours. And I don't care whether my name is up there on top, either. Matter of fact, I'd rather have someone else get top billing; then if the picture bombs, he gets the blame, not me.

I'm what you call a Depression sailor.

I don't chart out the life histories of the people I play. If I did, I'd be in trouble. I work with my heart and my head, and naturally emotions follow.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

I wouldn't trade those 10 years for anything. The Navy taught me a lot of things. It molded me as a man, and I made a lot of wonderful friends.

I just want to do more work. Every time I step in front of a camera I feel young again. I really do. It keeps your mind active and it keeps you going.

To this day I clean better than most maids.

The Navy has changed a great deal. Not that the officers of my day were bad, because I served under a lot of good officers, believe me. But there were a few bad ones, too.

I got a job immediately after leaving high school; I was lucky - three dollars a week and all I could eat, working on a vegetable truck.

I've been to a number of places and seen for myself the caliber of people who are in the Navy today - in all the services for that matter. This is an altogether different bunch. These people of today are really bright, young, good people.

The Oscar made me a star, and I'm grateful. But I feel had I not won the Oscar I wouldn't have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life.

I think we all have the urge to be a clown, whether we know it or not.

You got to keep your hand in your craft, otherwise you can rot at the roots and first thing you know, you got nothing.

I call myself a character actor all my life. I've done a certain amount as a leading man, but character actors in my estimation - it's a lost art these days.

Today's work, I don't know it just doesn't make sense, a lot of it. It's just guns and sex and more guns and more sex. You say to yourself, when the hell are you gonna get down to the nitty-gritty and do something good so people can be entertained? I mean if they call this entertainment.

We've all got a lot of catching up to do. I'm still learning how to act, for god's sake. When I see these old-timers on the Turner Classic Movies, I still get ideas, you know. That's where you really learn acting. If you really see some of these old boys working it and you say to yourself, "My God, if I could really do that that would be wonderful."

If John Wayne were alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave!

You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain.

Every time I step in front of a camera I feel young again. I really do. It keeps your mind active and it keeps you going.

There's an awful lot to be desired. I've gone to places where people say to me, "What's your technique?" Technique? What the hell technique is there to acting? We're acting because even with my voice I'm giving what I think is what I want to say.

It was my mom who told me, "Ernie, if you make even one person happy with your smile or a funny thing you did every day, you'll have accomplished a great deal." And that's all I've ever tried to do.

This is the kind of upbringing we had instead of sitting in front of a damn television set all day long and never answering to anybody else unless somebody spoke up from a television set. It's an altogether different way of living today that you wonder how it really affects the family? I know how it affects the family because I have my own son who has his children and also my daughter. It's one of those things. Everybody eats in their own way and off they go. You know? It's not family oriented anymore."

Fathers and mothers are just people, which means they make mistakes. Don't hold that against them. Whatever flaws they may have, they created you in a moment of love, and are among the few who knew you when. When they're gone, there won't be anyone to take their place.

Every time you play one old-time picture along with today's kind of work, and they throw in the computers and the guns and the this and the that and the God-almighty, it gets to be a hassle and you wonder who the hell's doing what!

I got a damn good mind to write a book about all the feelings that I have inside about all these things that happened in our life that we're making happen and letting it happen when it shouldn't be happening.

A lot of people forget that today. They come to the point where you walk on a set and the first thing you know you're looking at the sound man and you're saying to yourself, "How the hell can they get any sound when nobody is talking!" They get all mumbly. You can't make out what they're saying! And you're 6 feet away from them! Whereas in the old-time movies, you hear them, you understand every word they're saying, and you didn't have to put on your loudspeaker.

We got together, and Bruce Willis was just a sweet animal, a sweetheart. I tell you, right down to the core he's just a real professional, a real gentleman, and I must say I'm so very happy for him that he's got a heck of a good film.

It's not your word that matters, it's who you give it too.

Three quarters of producers don't even know who I am. The other quarter think I am dead.

I think you have to keep going. Otherwise, you know these fellas that say, "Boy I can't wait to retire. Boy, I'm going to be 65 years old, and I'm retiring and I'm quitting and that's it." Well, two weeks later they're saying to themselves, "What the hell am I gonna do?" And first thing you know they find themselves in a wheelchair or in a rocking chair going back and forth, back and forth, and that's the end of it. And suddenly you're dead.

Gary Cooper - the greatest listener in the world! And he used to answer in kind, which is wonderful because you don't see that anymore. People don't listen. They really don't.

I'm still watching all those old-timers really going along, and I'm enjoying it so much, not just looking at the pictures, but looking at the acting. Paul Muni. Beautiful character. Edward G. Robinson. Jimmy Cagney. All those old boys. You don't find those characters anymore.

I am very proud of having won Oscar because I know what I put into it. I know that the people who voted for me voted because they thought I was the best at that time. It's a wonderful thing to look up there and see that you achieved something that your peers gave to you and appreciation for your work. That's most of all what I think about when I see the Oscar.

I like to keep at my craft. I like to keep reading scripts, whether I'm in it or not because of the fact that what would I do in a certain case? How would this happen or how would that go? I like to keep working with my mind, so when I do perform I have something to perform with, and it's not just like trying on new clothes. You're trying on a suit, but you know where the heck the pants go.