Paul Newman Quotes

Where the hell are the singing cats?

I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don't look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community.

The accusation is always on the first page, and the retraction on page 19.

I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts.

On adultery: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?

There are many ingredients that go into making a film. It baffles me, what works and what doesn't.

Twenty-five years ago I couldn`t walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don`t ask me about my movies and they don`t ask me about my salad dressing because they don`t know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.

No sense in being a grifter if it's the same as being a citizen.

I don't like gossip stories. Facts are okay. But when gossips begin making items, that's something else again.

Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.

A rebel is a nonconformist who is constantly saying no, and I'm not that. I'm a conformist and I believe in progress, and you can't make much progress by saying no all the time. A rebel is destructive. I know I have something constructive to offer.

I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.

The concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn't hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. I'm bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet.

It's been a privilege to be here.

If I ever feel like I’m doing something I’ve done before, I scrap it and start over again.

A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.

I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

People like to do what they used to do after they've stopped being able to do it.

A man with no enemies is a man with no character.

In the early days of films, the movie star in this country replaced royalty. They've been demoted since then but they're still treated as beings larger than life.

I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.

We all die, just a question of when.

The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films.

The only question I ever ask any woman is, 'what time is your husband coming home?'

Newman's second law: Just when things look darkest, they go black.

I changed my life today. What did you do?

I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary.

Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other... You can't spend a lifetime breathing down each other's necks... We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.

Those with a moral deficit put on a good show, and sleep like a baby.

I don't go for the so-called "intimate" stuff. Column items that report: "Minerva Ferncroft sleeps in pink dusting powder between puce-colored sheets in a heart-shaped bed." It leaves me cold.

How many honest men do you know? Take the sinners away from the saints, you're lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln.

There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black.

It seems to me that the older I get, the more running around I do with less satisfaction, just spinning my wheels.

There are three rules for running a business; fortunately, we don't know any of them.

I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there's a spirit that takes action, a heart, and a talent that doesn't come from my blue eyes.

Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.

I certainly never expected to be a professional actor. I never expected to be in movies. I thought I would probably become a teacher.

When the idea came up, (Newman's Own) I said, "Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?" And then, of course, we got the whole idea of exploitation and how circular it is. Why not, really, go to the fullest length, and the silliest length, in exploiting yourself and turn the proceeds back to the community?

Admit it. I'm the best you ever seen, Fats. I'm the best there is. And even if you beat me, I'm still the best.

From salad dressings all blessings flow.

I think it's very desirable to be an individual and a free thinker.

Newman's first law: It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down.

The spaghetti sauce is a good thing to think about. Morning, noon, and night, think about the spaghetti sauce. Think about hustling other people to buy the spaghetti sauce.

...." I was rather discouraged when I discovered that Paul and Hotch had no marketing survey, no business plan, no budget, no organized strategy for the introduction of the sauce. When asked about this lack of preparation, the haphazard nature of their business, Paul said, 'Me in this business is just part of life's great folly. Stay loose, men, keep 'em off balance.'"

In racing, the fastest person wins. It is very simple.

A man without enemies is a man without character.

I want to acknowledge luck, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others.