Clint Eastwood Quotes

When you're an actor, you're so busy: people are always coming up to you and pulling your collar, making sure that things fit, brushing your hair and you're always being yanked up, so finally when you're behind a camera, you're just a slob.

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.

An awful lot of good movies have gone unrecognized, and an awful lot of bad movies have had tremendous recognition. As long as you keep that in mind, you are never really disappointed.

You have to teach yourself to act but Michael Chekhov will give you the necessary tools - and for me, Psychological Gesture and Centers are extremely valuable They work like a charm. I've used them all along and still do.

When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross.

A good man always knows his limitations.

I don't write. I usually look for material by other people. Sometimes I change things or adapt things but I don't write from scratch. I wish I had that ability.

[FBI] philosophy is "Go ahead and make the story you want to make, and hopefully we'll love it." So that's that.

I was always annoyed by too much explaining.

Westerns. A period gone by, the pioneer, the loner operating by himself, without benefit of society. It usually has something to do with some sort of vengeance; he takes care of the vengeance himself, doesn't call the police. Like Robin Hood. It's the last masculine frontier. Romantic myth. I guess, though it's hard to think about anything romantic today. In a Western you can think, Jesus, there was a time when man was alone, on horseback, out there where man hasn't spoiled the land yet.

Conflict is the basis of drama. I guess that goes back as long as time has existed as far as mankind is concerned, dating back to the Greek tragedies or the Old Testament. And violence is a form of conflict, so whether that's catharsis or whether that has some socially damaging effect on audiences - I suppose that would just depend.

You definitely do not do films for that particular reason. You do them for yourself, for your satisfaction of creating this thing with characters and watching these characters take on real life - that's all you care about.

When you're making a movie, you can't think anybody will ever see it. You've just got to make a movie for the values it has. The greatest films were made because someone really wanted to make them. And, hopefully, the audience will show up, too.

Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort.

As you get older you try to do things that please you more. You get a little more selfish. You start thinking I want to do things where I enjoy myself.

If you read any of the biographies on J. Edgar Hoover, you find that they contradict each other more than they agree. Often times, they're often told from a political perspective.

The more time you have to think things through, the more you have to screw it up.

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don't want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you're not performing at your best.

I'm always trying to tackle subjects that tax me and make me think. That's the key to staying young at heart. The brain has to be exercised the same as the rest of the body.

Once you finish a film, it doesn't belong to you anymore - it belongs to the audience to interpret it the way they feel like interpreting.

To me cinema can be a much more friendly world if there's a lot of things to choose from.

Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.

I don't believe in pessimism.

I do believe in self-help.

Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.

Nobody looks like they did when they were 20, so why not take advantage of the fact that you're changing, emotionally as well as physically?

As you get older, you change certain things.

I try to stick to a vegan diet heavy on fruit and vegetables.

I've taken advantage of a few breaks that came along and moved along with them.

If you don't pay attention to history, you're destined to repeat it.

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

I am not a regret type person. I don't believe in regrets. Lots of things you would do differently if you'd do it again, but you don't do it again, so you don't think about it. But that goes for life in general. You're only dealing with the knowledge you have at that time.

I had three points I wanted to make. That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

I'd say, go ahead, shoot your shot. More power to ya if you can come up with a different angle on the character.

Nobody knows diddly. They just think they do. And the people that think they know the most know the least.

Whatever the drama of the story is, you have to be true to it.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

I was always respectful of people who were deeply religious because I always felt that if they gave themselves to it, then it had to be important to them. But if you can go through life without it, that's OK, too. It's whatever suits you.

I think as you get older, you find you can play more things because you're moving to a different category. You play a certain thing as a younger man, playing action roles like I did. Then I moved out, and I kept trying to do different things all the time.

Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!

Winning the election is a good-news, bad-news kind of thing. Okay, now you're the mayor. The bad news is, now you're the mayor.

You should never give up your inner self.

When I used to be a contract player in 1954 at Universal, I wasn't getting good roles. I was getting one-liners, and then I'd be gone. But I'd hang around; I'd watch guys. And when I had days off, which was most days, I'd go down and watch other sets while they were shooting. Watch Joan Crawford or whomever. Just watch how they worked and how the director handled them. I didn't know anything about making movies, and there's a lot to learn.

I'd have to go for Donald Trump ... you know, 'cause Hillary Clinton is declared that she's gonna follow in Barack Obama's footsteps. There's been just too much funny business on both sides of the aisle. She's made a lot of dough out of being a politician.

Writing is a creative art form and the acting and directing is more of an interpretive art form.

If a person is confident enough in the way they feel, whether it's an art form or whether it's just in life, it comes off---you don't have anything to prove; you can just be who you are.

The reason I don't retire is that I learn something new every day. The brain has to be exercised the same as the rest of the body. It's about expanding, constantly pushing yourself.