Quotes from Orson Bean

I didn't want to be famous for its own sake. I wanted to be famous so as to be happy.

Every restaurant in the world is owned by a Greek.

The movies saved my life. I grew up in the great depression, the only child of a pair of star crossed lovers. My father lost his job. My mother drank. They fought. The movies were my escape.

I make more than a handsome living doing voices for commercials; I hear myself all day on the tube.

Children can become self-reliant and self-disciplined by being free to do what they want to do.

I adored my mother. She was beautiful, smart, sexy and funny.

People shouldn't get into show business because they want to become stars or become rich; they should get into it because they can't help but put on a show.

I think people are afraid to be original.

The only real benefit of being famous is being recognized by head waiters and getting good tables at restaurants. The rest is part ego trip and part inconvenience.

I used to picture myself as the old guy eating the Early Bird Specials in the mall.

The people who get bored and want to get out of a long-run aren't the people who actually like to act.

Cecil B. DeMille worshipped the almighty buck.

I think God loves to hear little kids laugh at fart jokes. He didn't just make sunsets and bluebirds, He made hot babes. And dirty old men like me. That's the modest message I've set out to tell the world: you don't have to be Ned Flanders to be a Christian.

I'm not a pessimist. I do believe that in some way we don't understand, God has a hand in things and it will all work out for America. Our money says In God We Trust. And we are the best country, aren't we?

I never cared what anyone thought about me.

Possessions can possess you. Even a lawn can possess you. It makes you buy a garden hose. Which makes you water. Which cuts into time you might be happier spending some other way.

Strange are the ways of human behavior.

It's never been written about, but before the blacklist of Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood Ten, there was a de facto blacklist by Communists in the movie industry, and there were a lot of them.

I knew people who were real Communists but never made it onto the blacklist and kept on working. There were also people reputed to be Communists who weren't.

We believe in satisfying our own needs but always considering others.

Anything that's done correctly is easy.

I don't believe most kids enjoy school at all, and that's a shameful waste, considering how curious and excited kids are to learn. They're naturally curious, full of wonder.

Until I read Neill's book, 'Summerhill,' I thought there were only two ways to bring up children, either with authoritarian discipline or with permissiveness. Either way, hopefully, applied with love. Now I know there is a third way: teaching a child self*regulation, not by coercion or by abandoning discipline, but by freedom with responsibility.

I made a decision a few years back to never again do anything professionally that I didn't want to do.