Nobody's strong enough to stand up under a flood of weak material.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I'd rather be David Ladd's father than Alan Ladd any day.

I was a dummy in school.

I don't care how small the parts are, as long as they're good.

I'm shy and can't for the life of me barge around and slap people on the back. I sit in a corner by myself and am tickled to death when someone comes over to talk to me.

Our children were trained to look after each other.

I hear about stars being torn to pieces by fans. It never happened to me and I never saw it happen to anyone else.

A producer has to know all about everything from set-building to costumes to acting.

I was never trained for anything.

I'm no good with words but I'll find ways from time to time to show you how grateful I am.

I learned more about acting from George Stevens in a few months than I had in my entire life up until then.

I'm working myself to death.

Maybe I thought too much about picking up the money and not enough about the really good parts.

Not every father gets a chance to start his son off in his own footsteps.

I'm going to make it. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing. I want it too much.

I just want to make pictures that are entertaining. I'll leave the scenery chewing to someone else.

Strangers still leave me self-conscious.

I know what's good for me. I can't play black or gray. I can't be a villain or anything close to one. I have to play white.

If you can figure out my success on the screen, you're a better man than I.

It's a funny thing about me. I don't have any interest in food most of the time now, although when I was a kid I was always hungry.

I've always had a great respect for the picture business. It's been good to me.

It's natural to want your kids to have all the things you didn't have.

I think any movie star who refuses autographs has a hell of a nerve.

If I had my way, I'd do all my entertaining on the front steps.

I'm the most insecure guy in Hollywood. If you had it good all your life, you figure it can't ever get bad, but when you had it bad, you wonder how long a thing like this will last.

I wish I were the type who could walk into a place and have everybody love me. But I'm not, and there's no use wishing.

Being a good host offsets the deprivation and loneliness of my youth.

Just as Jimmy Stewart and Tyrone Power get 50 percent of the profits, so do I.

When I was on the air a lot my throat and vocal chords got tired. If you don't vary your tones you can't get pretty tired of your own voice.

What good will a tax break do me if I'm crippled for life?

Time scoots along pretty fast when you grow up.

My parents were so poor when I was a kid, I never went anywhere. I take our youngsters with us because I don't know anything that teaches them so much.

I never fail to feel let down when I see myself on the screen.

I had only that one picture, Hitler, the Beast of Berlin, in which I had a part big enough to impress anyone. I tried for better roles over and over again.

Nobody's strong enough to stand up under a flood of weak material.

It seems only reasonable that the people have a right to know virtually everything about the personality they are buying each time they put their money through the box office.

As long as my pictures go into theaters and we ask people to pay to see what I do on the screen, I should not object if customers want to know what kind of man I am.

It turned out that the buckyball, the soccer ball, was something of a Rosetta stone of an infinite new class of molecules.

The kid who throws his spaghetti from the high chair onto his father's face, he's pushing back. He's sticking it to the man as he sees it. I like that. So that is punk.

What we need most, is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real.

Taxpayers will not stand for - nor should they - the funding of poster sites, leaflets or advertising. What people will support is funding for political education, for training, for party organization.

Sometimes you can find peace of mind by transferring yourself to different situations. They're just reminders to stay... calm.

Be silent or say something better than silence

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Science, literature, and common sense tell us that the self is a fickle thing, subject to revision in real time, and that the chasm that exists between any two people exists inside each and every one of us.

But often times, I feel like I'm so blessed, it's not fair. That what I'm doing is not contributing to the good of the world.

If you do a serious presidential bio, you want to supply the reader with maximum material because otherwise you're offending the reader. A president for many people is a serious thing and they want to know everything.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It's the same with me and writing.