Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Audiences are audiences.
Every actor wants to direct.
I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
There is no role I cannot play except a midget.
I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
In my world, history comes down to language and art.
Accents. I'm very good with accents. I'm exceedingly good.
I am not, and have never been, in favor of boycotting Israel.
I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.
I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.
No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.
I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.
I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?
I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.
In my mind the city of Ariel is a thorn in Israel's side and a serious obstacle to peace.
I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God's purpose and God's intent.
We live in a world of guns, bombs and terror. To conquer hate seems a nigh-impossible task.
I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family.
When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.
You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.
The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before.
No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.
It's a sad thing to contemplate, but I'm the last surviving cast member of 'The African Queen.'
As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
Retiring' - within that word is 'tiring,' and I'm not tired. I don't believe in retirement, really.
But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.
'Retiring' - within that word is 'tiring,' and I'm not tired. I don't believe in retirement, really.
I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.
You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and that is truer in the arts than anywhere else.
No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations.
If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.
We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.
I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.
For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.
On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.
Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.
Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.
I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.
Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.
After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.
Every actor wants to direct and produce, but I made a conscious decision when I was in college to understand the 'business' of 'show business.'
I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.