Quotes from Kirk Douglas

I'm an actor; I have made my living by acting, and I almost think I owe it to the public to express my feelings and not as a character on a screen but as myself.

Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back?

When you reach 95, after you get over your surprise, you start looking back.

You know, sometimes an interviewer will look at me and say - you're bright! They're actually surprised I might be bright.

Sometimes an interviewer will look at me and say, 'You're bright!' They're actually surprised I might be bright.

Maybe there is no peace in this world. I don't know ... But I know as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves.

You know, you have to have some inner philosophy to deal with adversity.

Really a bad guy is more interesting, dramatically, than the good guy.

We look for wine when we should be hunting bread.

People are composed of many things, and in my work, what influences me is the complexity of people - the chiaroscuro of dark and light. When I play a strong guy, I try to find, where is he weak? And, conversely, when I play a weak guy, where is he strong?

I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.

I don't need a critic to tell me I'm an actor. I make my own way. Nobody's my boss. Nobody's ever been my boss.

I have a great respect for actors like Clint Eastwood, who's a wonderful director. I think two pictures that I directed were not successful, so I decided not to make any more.

Too often, I have not been what I wanted to be; I've succumbed to pressures. Yes, I have. The things I've done that I liked, I've always done against advice.

Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.

My first job was on Broadway. Then I went into the Navy. When I came out of the Navy, I went back to Broadway and a friend of mine, Lauren Bacall, was in Hollywood filming with Humphrey Bogart. She told one of her producers I was great in my play, and he saw it and cast me in 'The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'.

I was conscious of my father's fame from the time I was 6.

Life is like a B-picture script.

All my life, I have taken inventory at intervals. For example, when I became a movie actor and suddenly I had to deal with fame, money and playing so many roles, I lost myself. I said, 'Who am I?' And I wrote my first book to deal with that, 'The Ragman's Son.'

If I have to speak in public, I am terrified.

I bought the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I paid to have it made into a play and I played in it for six months. I came back and I tried to make it into a movie, without success.

My four sons all knew I was a Jew, but they were allowed to be whatever they wanted to be. The only thing important to me was that they be good people who help other people, because all religion should try to make you a better person and a more caring person. Whenever religion does that for you, it's a good religion.

People are always talking about the old days. They say that the old movies were better, that the old actors were so great. But I don't think so. All I can say about the old days is that they have passed.

I've played some good guys as well, in Spartacus, Paths of Glory and my favorite picture, Lonely Are the Brave, so I had a mixture of parts in my life.