Quotes from Hal Holbrook

I have a suicide impulse.

There's no good guys and bad guys.

To communicate with each other, we got to get mad at each other sometimes.

Death ends a life. But it doesn't end a relationship.

I got a feeling about political correctness. I hate it. It causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think.

Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that's got true religion, several of them.

One of the problems with putting Huck Finn into a movie or on the stage is, you always make the white people stupid and racist. The point is, they don't know they're racist.

I don't have a director. The audience directs me.

Success is no longer content. It's how it sells.

We live in a democracy. We have this extraordinary opportunity to use our mind and say what we think, speak as we think. Sometimes what we say is objectionable to other people. But that is part of a free society.

I think I may drop dead on the stage someday. I hate to think of it. But it's getting tough on me, the travel. The show, I somehow manage to rise up to it, you know. But I have no desire to retire.

The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don't want to do.

I developed a resistance to authority. Not to discipline - I learned that. But to authority. I like to think for myself. And I like to cause trouble.

Mark Twain cannot be defined.

You can go into Mark Twain's material and prove anything you want. He was against war. He was for war. He was against rich people and he was for them. He was a kaleidoscope

Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.

Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that's got true religion, several of them.

I tended to lean toward character work. I love to disguise myself.