Quotes from Harry Dean Stanton

The most terrifying thing for most everybody in the whole Western World is to take responsibility for your own life and to experience real freedom.

I really liked the Mariachi singing in Westerns.

I think any performing artist can do films, or, as a matter of fact, anybody out there in the street can be a film actor with no experience whatsoever if you've got a good director.

I've never seen a Western that was really truthful. Most are just morality plays. Good guys and bad guys - and the good guys always win, whereas in reality, most of the sheriffs were as bad as the gangsters they were after.

My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk. My first performance was of a song called 'My Blue Heaven,' which I began singing when I was a year and a half.

I think I'm blessed with a pretty tough psyche.

I just wasn't psychologically made to get married or, God forbid, be a father.

I always had a dramatic flair. I'd like to dress up like a cowboy, play make-believe. But I didn't realize acting was something I had to do until I got to college.

I don't blame anyone but myself for the kind of parts I got. To blame external circumstances is absolute folly.

I've worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.

My favorite films are 'Paris, Texas' and 'Repo Man.'

If I never did another film after 'Paris, Texas,' I'd be happy.

'Paris, Texas' is the first film that I've totally cared about, the first movie I totally wanted to do - and that after 27 years that I considered my prison term.

'Paris, Texas' gave me a chance to play compassion, and I'm spelling that with a capital C.

I like to watch 'Paris, Texas,' but I have no desire to see it. I did it.

I was the classic killer. I always played an angry man. I think it was because I used to really be like that - I was hostile. And because I had a good sense of theatrical truth, I used my anger and rebelliousness and just went with it. Anger was just a part of me.

I'd love to meet Gandhi. And Christ. I'm sure he'd be interesting. And a lot different than a lot of people would think.

I could have been a lot more famous and played leading men and everything. For whatever reason, I didn't go for it.

I've been blessed. I've worked with a lot of good people.

I had opportunities to be a lot more successful, but for some reason or other - the way I was particularly genetically wired - I turned down a lot of opportunities.

I've always been a searcher - you know, a hunter. I'm certainly not the only one. They say actors shouldn't get political and everything, but you can't separate yourself. You can't disconnect yourself from anything.

I was in the Pacific. The Pacific Theater, as they say.

I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.

I do all the classics, like Dylan, Kristofferson, Jimmy Reed, Mexican mariachi songs, some jazz songs from the '30s. Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine,' that's one of my favorites.