An actor without a playwright is like a hole without a doughnut.

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.

The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.

Women, as they grow older, rely more and more on cosmetics. Men, as they grow older, rely more and more on a sense of humor.

Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.

An actor without a playwright is like a hole without a doughnut.

So long as there is one pretty girl left on the stage, the professional undertakers may hold up their burial of the theater.

Love demands infinitely less than friendship.

An optimist is a fellow who believes a housefly is looking for a way to get out.

A man admires a woman not for what she says, but what she listens to.

Beauty makes idiots sad and wise men merry.

It is also said of me that I now and then contradict myself. Yes, I improve wonderfully as time goes on.

A man's wife is his compromise with the illusion of his first sweetheart.

It is only the cynicism that is born of success that is penetrating and valid.

I know many married men, I even know a few happily married men, but I don't know one who wouldn't fall down the first open coal hole running after the first pretty girl who gave him a wink.

Criticism is the windows and chandeliers of art: it illuminates the enveloping darkness in which art might otherwise rest only vaguely discernible, and perhaps altogether unseen.

No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.

To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.

I drink to make other people interesting.

Whenever a man encounters a woman in a mood he doesn't understand, he wants to know if she's tired.

Love is the emotion that a woman feels always for a poodle dog and sometimes for a man.

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.

Common sense, in so far as it exists, is all for the bourgeoisie. Nonsense is the privilege of the aristocracy. The worries of the world are for the common people.

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Criticism is the art of appraising others at one's own value.

I have yet to find a man worth his salt in any direction who did not think of himself first and foremost.

What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency.

Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.

The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth.

The bachelors admired freedom is often a yoke for the freer a man is to himself the greater slave he often is to the whims of others.

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.