Alan Arkin Quotes

Alan Arkin is an American actor and director. He has appeared in numerous films and stage productions, showcasing his exceptional acting skills and versatility. Arkin's performances have earned him accolades, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His talent and contribution to the world of acting have solidified his status as a respected figure in the industry.

I'd have to say that my favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning. 'Little Miss Sunshine' is like that. That's my fave genre, if I had to pick one.

For everybody, the tide comes in, the tide goes ou... -Alan Arkin

For everybody, the tide comes in, the tide goes out - if you're an actor, particularly.

No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you're gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can't do parenting right.

I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?

That's the privilege of old age: You don't have to... -Alan Arkin

That's the privilege of old age: You don't have to remember.

I don't sense that I am someone's hero, though I'm happy when people like my work. I've learned how to be gracious about it, but I try to let it go by. I've seen how, if people start taking on those accolades, it can ruin them completely.

I gotta make a living. I make no bones about that. Most actors do. But within that context, I've never not tried to make something as fresh and alive as I possibly could make it.

I can't even pretend to play golf.... -Alan Arkin

I can't even pretend to play golf.

Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I ... -Alan Arkin

Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.

I never had a better role than I had in 'Little Miss Sunshine.' That was one of my favorite roles ever.

People think that the people in Hollywood have some master plan. They just make the movies that people go to see. I think it's that simple. I promise you if people were lining up around the block to see a Bible movie, they'd make Bible movies from now to the end of time.

I'm as old as I am, and I don't try to hide it. It... -Alan Arkin

I'm as old as I am, and I don't try to hide it. It's not a big deal.

All I can say is if the part doesn't delight me in some way, or I can't feel any compassion for it, I just can't do it.

My favorite thing about making movies is that it's the only area of human life that I've ever discovered where I can walk away from somebody in the middle of a conversation with somebody and they won't be offended.

I'm an actor. My life as an actor depends on who sends me what. I'm just taking the best stuff that I can find that's sent my way, regardless of how big or little the paycheck is.

I would rather die than do a play - 10 years in so... -Alan Arkin

I would rather die than do a play - 10 years in solitary instead.

I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did.

I love working if it's with people who are capable of having a good time. People with a little bit of enjoyment of what they do. If it's enormous pressure, and people feel that their lives are at stake, then it's agony. So I try to pick projects where I feel like I'm going to avoid those traps.

There have been times when I've been broke, and a job came along, and I've said, 'Yeah! Let's do it!' But I will never do something without having a feeling of knowing how to play it. I've been in projects that I felt terrible about afterwards, but I've always had something that sparked me while I was doing it.

The last time I heard real screaming in the theatre was when I went to see a movie I did years ago, called 'Wait Until Dark.' Now, my mother was the least emotional person on the planet, but when I got killed in the movie, she stood up and screamed, 'That's my son!' At Radio City Music Hall in New York!

Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us; to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves.

I was terrified of being on stage, and I had to wo... -Alan Arkin

I was terrified of being on stage, and I had to work very hard at a craft to get past that.

I wanted to make it in New York. I thought if I went out to the Midwest, I'd be burying myself. But I was wrong.

I don't live in L.A. on purpose because I don't wanna be immersed in that. I have to have a real life, with real people, in order to inform what I'm doing; otherwise, it just becomes the snake eating its own tail. Vampirism.

I would like to have a movie under my own control sometime, and see what could be done with it. Who knows? Maybe Hollywood will make an improvisational movie someday.

I don't believe there's anything in life you can't go back and fix. The ancient Vedas - the oldest Hindu philosophy - and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that's true, there's no such thing as a past or a future - it's all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future.

Over the years, I played with a couple of spectacular guitar players, and playing with them has made me play better than I knew how to play. I hope the same thing is true with acting.

A director without a vision is a catastrophe.... -Alan Arkin

A director without a vision is a catastrophe.

Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.

I don't know what I'm proudest of. The fact that m... -Alan Arkin

I don't know what I'm proudest of. The fact that my kids still talk to me.

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