63 Paul Newman Quotes

Paul Newman quotes

1. I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.

2. I've repeatedly said that for people as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors, we make pictures - and that's about all we have in common. Maybe that's enough. Wives shouldn't feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighbourhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends - and not impose one upon the other.

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

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

5. Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experiences.

6. I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

7. The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play - characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.

8. I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?

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

10. 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.

11. Building weapons that we don't need, don't work, and aren't necessary, and have no mission - that's not bad politics, that's robbery.

12. The concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn't hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. I'm bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet. In 1987, the average CEO against someone who was working in his factory was 70 times. It's now 410 times.

13. I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me.

14. To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.

15. 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.

16. When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good.

17. It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now - my good Lord - look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd.

18. I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.

19. I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

20. Being on President Nixon's enemies list was the highest single honor I've ever received. Who knows who's listening to me now and what government list I'm on?

21. I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don't want any woman to look under the carpet because there's lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, 'Mr. and Mrs. Bridge' comes closest to who I really am. I personally don't think there's one character who comes close... but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don't have a solid opinion about.

22. Study your craft and know who you are and what's special about you. Find out what everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society.

23. 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?

24. You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: 'Holy Christ, whaddya know - I'm still around!' It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

25. It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, 'I am terribly sorry. I'm tired.'

26. To be an actor, you have to be a child.

27. Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it.

28. A man with no enemies is a man with no character.

29. Twenty-five years ago I couldn't walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don't ask me about my movies and they don't ask me about my salad dressing because they don't know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.

30. The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films.

31. He makes it look so easy, and he looks so wonderful, that everybody assumes he isn't acting.

32. He is the most private man I've ever known. He has a moat and a drawbridge which he lets down only occasionally.

33. He has the attention span of a bolt of lightning.

34. He has a good character, and not many people do. I think he would rather not do anything wrong, whether on a moral or an artistic level. He is what you would call a man of conscience - not necessarily of judgment, but of conscience. I don't know any actors like that.

35. Paul likes to test himself. That's what makes Paul run. He's got a lot of courage, a highly underrated element in people's lives these days.

1. We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.

2. 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.

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

4. Watching something is nothing like doing it.

5. 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.

6. What could be better than to hold your hand out to people less fortunate than you are?

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

8. George Roy Hill, Redford, and I have been looking for a script to do together for 13 years. We haven't been able to find one that we liked enough for the three of us to be in it together.

9. An actor has to evaluate his own abilities and be honest with himself.

10. When the idea came up, (Newman's Own) I said, "Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?" And then, of course, we got the whole idea of exploitation and how circular it is. Why not, really, go to the fullest length, and the silliest length, in exploiting yourself and turn the proceeds back to the community?

11. When you see the right thing to do, you'd better do it.

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

13. I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don't want any woman to look under the carpet, guys, because there's lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, 'Mr. and Mrs. Bridge' comes closest to who I really am. I personally don't think there's one character who comes close . . . but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don't have a solid opinion about.

14. I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there's a spirit that takes action, a heart, and a talent that doesn't come from my blue eyes.

15. What we got here is a failure to communicate.

16. Newman's first law: It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down.

17. A feud should live a full and colorful life, and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.

18. People like to do what they used to do after they've stopped being able to do it.

19. We've polluted the stratosphere with these chlorine and bromine compounds, and because it's now colder, and because we have this change in the climate, we're getting more ozone loss than we would have gotten in a normal year.

20. 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.

21. A lot of people have dreams and never do anything about them. When you have ideas and dreams, you do something about it.

22. People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.

23. Choose between yesterday and tomorrow.

24. Now then, if we were to go the lowest road and plaster my face on the bottle of oil and vinegar dressing just to line our pockets, it would sink. But to go the low road to get to the high road- shameless exploitation for charity, for the common good- now that's an idea worth the hustle, a reciprocal trade agreement.

25. The star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars.

26. The Alexander Technique helped a long-standing back problem and to get a good night's sleep after many years of tossing and turning.

27. If I ever feel like I’m doing something I’ve done before, I scrap it and start over again.

28. 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.