Acting is like sex: you either do it and don't talk about it, or you talk about it and don't do it. That's why I'm always suspicious of people who talk too much about either.

Physically, I’m not tough. I may think tough. I would say I’m kinda tough and calloused inside. I could use a foot more in height and fifty more pounds and fifteen years off my age and then God help all you bastards.

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.

I don't approve of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying "Shucks, I ain't no actor - I'm just a bridge builder or a gas station attendant." If they aren't actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it.

A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz.

It is at least worth arguing that there is a modicum of the creative novelist in all of us, and that this absorption with how men get out of difficulties, single-handedly and alone if possible, is the stuff of which we weave the warp and woof of our own better dramatic imaginings.

This guy (Marlon Brando) - he'll be doing Hamlet when the rest of us are selling potatoes.