Quotes from Sterling Hayden

I felt reluctant accepting the very lucrative and easy life Hollywood had offered me. All of it planted a seed: If I could do something about the conditions of the world, I could probably justify my position as an actor.

Tahiti has always been like a girl. She should be approached with caution, taking plenty of time and be enjoyed. Instead tourists with plenty of money are flinging themselves on the island and destroying the place.

I realize now that it is a serious business requiring honest, hard work. The first time Hollywood was served up to me on a silver platter. I've finally gotten rid of the platter.

For us to support the liquidation of a simple life in a large part of the world is not a particularly attractive prospect.

You become trapped doing bad movies. And, the thing that makes it difficult to stop making them is that you get good money.

As a child I was told if I was ever given ruled paper I should write across the lines. And that's what I've done, traveling the roads with the least traffic.

In the worship of security we fling ourselves beneath the wheels of routine-and before we know it our lives are gone.

The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked with dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

To be truly challenging, a voyage,like a life,must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse.

I'd rather be wrong on my own than be right on somebody else's say-so.

This is the backward hemisphere. Underdeveloped. The realm of the second-class (save for an upper crust, with their silvered spoons). This is the kingdom of poverty, of disease and the starving peasant...the hemisphere of silence...of patient resignation...up to a point.

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea—"cruising," it is called.

I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

Boys don't cry very often, because it's so important to be tough. But sometimes their heart just starts aching; then they hide somewhere and let it all pour out, which helps—unless they're really frightened.

Audiences may not realize it, but heroes and leading men always depend on their muscles to get out of jams. They don't have to slug a guy in the mouth to solve a problem, but it's always hinted that he can fight like the heavyweight champ if he has to.

John Brown was one of my longtime heroes, and it was with no little amount of temerity that I accepted the role. There are some things I am hesitant about, and playing a hero of mine is one of them.

All I need is a place to put my things, somewhere to lay a mattress.

Sooner or later a man has simply got to do what he thinks is right, no matter what other people, or the courts, or his friends, or his enemies, or God himself may tell him.

I've got a fetish about motors on sail boats. Sailboats were meant to sail.

I got stardom too easily. I didn't appreciate the breaks. But that's all behind me now.

There's nothing wrong with being an actor, if that's what a man wants. But there's everything wrong with achieving an exalted status, simply because one photographs well and is able to handle dialogue put in one's mouth by others.

I think my opinion of Hollywood must stem from my own, philosophy as a man.

I have no respect for acting where I'm concerned.

Normality is boring.