I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.

Sometimes...it's better for a man just to walk away. But if you can't walk away? I guess that's when it's tough.

Every time I am reading actors I can pretty well tell which ones have studied with Meisner. It is because they are honest and simple and don't lay on complications that aren't necessary.

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July.

Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now.

And old Dave, he'd go up to his room, y'understand, put on his green velvet slippers - I'll never forget - and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.