Robert Duvall Quotes

What drives me is I love my profession. I love to do it.

I wouldn't mind starting to ride some more if I had a really good horse to just work a little bit with every day.

High Noon is a pretty corny movie.

I can always grow a little bit, and try to do something different. So I'm always looking for what's out there - the potential.

You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.

I was fortunate in the last century to be in the two biggest hits film-wise, "Godfather I" and "Godfather II," and "Lonesome Dove".

It's like kids playing house: 'You play the father, I'll play the mother.' You know, you dress up, you play, they pay, you go home. It's a game - acting's a game.

Listening to critics is like letting Muhammad Ali decide which astronaut goes to the moon.

Sometimes directors will hire you and say, 'Oh, we love your work.' And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, 'Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.'

When I knew nothing, I thought I could do anything.

It's a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It's America's genre.

I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.

The only thing that might make me stay in bed would be fear. Once I get rest, then I can overcome the fear of a given day and then I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Not that I always have that fear, but sometimes that's the only thing that would keep me in bed more than just the laziness.

I like the smell of toast. Coffee is okay, but I don't drink much coffee. But toast is a nice smell. You smell some toast coming from your kitchen in the morning, you know that you're involved in a domestic situation and the operation that's going on is pleasant.

I love going to black churches, and I love some of these black preachers. The best preacher I ever saw in my life was a 93-year-old in a black church in Hamilton, Virginia. What a preacher!

To this day, I still think Lonesome Dove is my best part.

But for me, the challenge is how you turn a character into behavior. Once the director says 'action', you just try to live between those two worlds.

The beginning and the end of the tango is the walk.

When I'm at home in Virginia, I become more hermit-like. I like my own home.

The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso's old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there.

If I ended my career, I wouldn't mind doing a TV series if it was a western and I played a mute gunfighter so I wouldn't have to remember lines every week.

I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.

I hope I left behind a legacy that people will enjoy. But whatever they want to say, I can't predict.

I like the good feeling movies.

To me, real comedy comes out of behavior. It's the choices you make as an actor. It's never about, "I want to do a comedy script." I can't think of it that way. And besides, some of those movies, those comedy movies, I can't even watch them.

Although it wasn't that easy to do, it was wonderful working with John Wayne.

You obviously don't have to be a murderer to play a murderer or you don't have to be a dictator to play a dictator. So, you're an actor. You come up with whatever you come up with to play that part.

There's no smoking section in heaven.

Way, way, way back I played a little bit, but I am definitely not a golfer. You know, it just takes too much time anyway during the course of the day.

You gotta be careful with message movies. People say "What do you want people to take away from it?" I always say its totally individual.

One thing I like about Argentina, they only cook with salt; that's it.

I try not to look for messages in films.

Some Russian ballet master woman said there's no culture in America, but if you look you can find interesting stuff in this country, don't you think?

Cows is one thing. But one man telling another man where he can go in this country is something else.

I don't have many people showing up at my door. Very few people come out. When they do, I get a little suspicious. I live way up on a hill, way, way back in the country.

I've always liked country music. It's a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America.

Around my own friends, I like to mess around.

God does guide the lives of individuals and does fill them with the Holy Ghost.

I love working in Texas anywhere.

I would like to ask each of you: Would you be in favor of some kind of education on birth control and if so, how would you use that as a possible solution to the ever present question of abortion.

Well, it's like my movie, 'The Apostle.' Some people in the North don't get that movie. They think that, in the South, if you don't shout, you can't play one of those guys.

The tango is a very interior dance. It's not an exterior - it's not flashy and all over the floor. It's a very interior dance when you see the old guys dance in the clubs. I learned everything from the old guys in the clubs.

When you shift the gear and that little needle on the tach goes into the red and reads 9,000 rpm, that's bad.

I'll keep on acting 'til they wipe the drool. I like the business. I like to do different parts and diverse characters. I haven't lost my enthusiasm yet!

Sometimes you don't prepare much. I mean, when I did 'Lonesome Dove' way back I rode horses day and night for like three or four months, and that got me ready for that.

The greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife.

I'm getting good offers, as good as ever sometimes. I just finished a thing with Billy Bob Thornton that was the most unique part I've ever played in my life, in the most unique project.

If you don't have heroes in the beginning, you don't grow.