Quotes from Orson Bean

Back in the fifties I was the hot, young comic on CBS and a regular on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' I was also starring in shows on Broadway and acting in dramatic programs on television. Those were the glory days of television. It was like theater. It was live. If an actor forgot a line, he improvised. There was an immediacy to it.

Even I get fan mail.

I don't expect to be another Walt Disney, but I do get a terrific bang out of being able to say things with pictures. Maybe that means something deep and profound about me - but I doubt it.

It's funny, I never watch TV. I watch Fox News.

Each morning and night I get down on my knees and thank God for my life and ask Him to make me grateful all the time instead of just most of the time.

In the long period of time when I did talk shows and game shows, a whole new generation of people came along who thought of me as that, and not as a theater person.

I certainly have no plans to quit the United States.

I remember the glory days of film making. I used to go to the movies a lot.

I made up my mind I was going to walk that thin line between fame and oblivion.

Being happy is a revolutionary act; I think it spreads, like ripples in a pond.

I didn't use a voice change to do Bilbo. I have a distinctive voice anyway. I did an attitude change, making Bilbo kind of fussy - fussy and proper - then gradually dropped the fussiness and properness as the madness of battle really affects him.

In '08, Barrack Obama was famously elected president. Even though I'd supported McCain and dreaded what I feared Barrack might do, I felt a surge of elation when the networks announced he'd won. I really hadn't thought the U.S. would go for an African-American for a decade or so.

I am dedicated to giving my kids the memory of happy parents. So I spend a lot of time with them. We really know each other. If they should decide later on that they hate me, at least they'll know who they're hating.

War was a way of life for Americans in the early forties. Heroism was expected.

I'm thankful I've learned to embrace insecurity, not just to tolerate it. Life is more fun that way, and I'm thankful for that, too.

I've made a lot of dumb mistakes, but I don't regret them at all.

Part of me is nonhuman and eccentric, which is what a hobbit is, and I don't mind being eccentric.

I had come to New York seeking my fortune after a few years of honing my craft as a stand-up on the road.

What I learned at home was despair and hopelessness. What I learned at the pictures was don't give up the ship, we have only begun to fight, it's always darkest before the dawn.

I did my teen-age years in World War II. War news was a constant. We kept the radio on in our house to hear Edward R. Murrow broadcasting from the rooftops of London, describing the blitz.

I'd lived through World War II and hadn't been able to wait to join the army as soon as I turned 18.

I don't spend my life making money to spend tomorrow, or to acquire possessions.

I always identified with Frankenstein because as a kid, I never got the girl.

I never thought that I couldn't do what I set out to do. It wasn't from arrogance; it was from ignorance.