I didn't intend to become an actor.

On the stage, you have to find truth, even if you have to lose the audience.

Well, I mean, you have an emotion, you want to express it. You don't just look in the camera and do it. You want to hide from the embarrassment of your brother saying you're not allowed to come into my town.

Bob Taylor and I playing brothers. And I was a Mexican bandit. And he was the sheriff of the town. And we loved each other. We loved each other very much.

The painter leaves his mark. And I just put in two statues in Rhode Island that I'm working on. And I think that's going to make me last longer than me.

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.

I have a son in Barcelona whom I am madly in love with.

I mean, you know, actors lives - you're forgotten. Look at Barrymore, and look at all the great actors. They're forgotten after awhile.

I love the stage.

Well, I mean, bread, I mean, I've got to have bread too to live.

I never satisfied that kid but I think he and I have made a deal now.

And I loved Frank Lloyd Wright. I think he was the greatest man I have ever met in my life.

I liked sculpting better than painting. You have more freedom in sculpting.

Well, I called him and I said, Mr. Wright, what can I do? Universal offered me a contract $300 a week. He says take it. You'll never get that money from me.

Now, Marlon and I - for some reason, even today - even today, we can't say two words to each other. We really can't talk to each other. You know, I say to him - Marlon can't talk. I mean, he'd talk to you. But he can't talk.

I didn't intend to become an actor.

Thirteen, 13 children, and I love - I love them all. And I think I've been a good father to all of them.

And I had known Peter O'Toole before in London. And I'd liked him very much. And the thought of being in a picture with him was very challenging to me. And he was playing the starring role.

First of all, I only get 50 percent of it, because, I mean, the galleries get 50 and 60 percent. I mean, that's normal. I understand that. I don't quarrel with that.

I never get the girl. I wind up with a country instead.

I mean, a Mexican boy couldn't be anything else but an Indian. And why did you take the name of Quinn, they used to say to me. Hey, you're an Indian, so I played Indians.

No parent is there forever. So I won't be here forever with these kids.

I have lived in a flurry of images, but I will go out in a freeze frame.

I studied all about Gauguin. He was a banker. He was a banker who - he used to paint on Sundays. And one day he hated himself for painting on Sundays.

I lost my father was I 10 years old, and I always looked for a father. I missed my father very much.

Oh, the Irish were building the railroads down through Mexico, through Chihuahua. They finished the railroads when they finished out in the West Coast, and they went down and put the trains into Mexico.

Having talent is like having blue eyes. You dont admire a man for the colour of his eyes. I admire a man for what he does with his talent.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.