Clint Eastwood quotes and sayings

Actor | Born: May 31, 1930

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : Libertarian: everyone leaves everyone else alone.

I like the inspiration of the first take.

I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

I think it is more important to tell a story rather than follow any trend; that is a less bold way to go. If you do that follow trends you are just trying to ride on the coat tails of someone else's success.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : The craving for information is so huge now, and it can be marketed at such a rapid rate.

Am I aging? The pros and the cons? Well, you know a lot more, at least until the time you start forgetting it all. Actually, aging can be a fun process, to some degree.

If you read any of the biographies on J. Edgar Hoover, you find that they contradict each other more than they agree. Often times, they're often told from a political perspective.

When I was young there was no respect for the young, and now that I am old there is no respect for the old.

The main thing is to do each project the way you want, and if they find an audience, that's terrific. And if they don't, there's nothing you can do anyway, so don't let it concern you that much. An awful lot of good movies have done badly and an awful lot of bad movies have done very well. There are no real rhymes or reasons for it. Sometimes the stars don't always align right. But if you've done the best you can, you feel pretty good about it.

Acting to me is a very organic art form and you just go and do it. And I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed. Let me bring in what I want to bring in, and if something's wrong, just tell me about it and I'll make some corrections or adjustments. And that's what I do.

I could be the driver - the Uber guy saying, "I used to be in films years ago... .".

If you approach a film with the feeling that you are going to have some impact on society then you're liable to get carried away with yourself. Alfred Hitchcock once told me, when I was analyzing a lot of things about his pictures, "Clint, you must remember, it's only a movie.

I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.

I guess it's like trying to put through the flat tax, which is probably my favorite one of all... if we did pass it, all of a sudden, what do you have? You have the whole tax system run by a little old lady on a home computer, doing the work of all these thousands of bureaucrats and accountants. Passing that would be amazing, wouldn't it?

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : Dying ain't much of a living, boy.

I don't write. I usually look for material by other people. Sometimes I change things or adapt things but I don't write from scratch. I wish I had that ability.

I don't see myself as conservative, but I'm not ultra-leftist. You build a philosophy of your own. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live.

I never sympathise with the accused unless there's a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don't ever sympathise with the criminal.

Hollywood seems to succumb to fads. Well, action films do well. Give me violence. Give me a scene where there's a couple of car chases or shooting and stuff like that. They're forgetting the fact that there's a basic structure to a story that is essential to making it really broad and appealing.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : I've actually had people come up to me and ask me to autograph their guns.

When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

They've got this crazy actor who's 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they're probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.

Participating in a gun buy-back program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids.

I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?

I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair.

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

People have lost their sense of humor. In former times, we constantly made jokes about different races.

I don't watch a lot of films. I'm usually involved in making them.

Casting a film is to me one of the most important things next to the writing. If you cast it properly everything takes place very easily. If you cast it improperly you're fighting an uphill battle.

I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.

I always thought what an interesting idea because almost everybody's fascinated by the perpetrator of a crime; very few people study what happens to people for the rest of their lives, and how it affects not only that particular character but other characters around him as well.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : Just saw American Sniper. Powerful. Another view of Coming Home. Bradley Cooper sensational. Bravo Clint Eastwood.

From an outsider's perspective, it's amazing what Clint Eastwood does. If he's not directing a film, he's acting in it, or rather he's composing the music for that film. His commitment to what he does is astounding for all of us to witness. It's inspiring, actually.

To me cinema can be a much more friendly world if there's a lot of things to choose from.

Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can't see any difference between take one and take 20.

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid.

Most people who'll remember me, if at all, will remember me as an action guy, which is okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But there will be a certain group which will remember me for the other films, the ones where I took a few chances. At least, I like to think so.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : Clint Eastwood's sex therapist, who said to Clint, Do it any which way you can, but no sudden impact. Never got a dinner!

My uncle played rugby, and my dad played football, and they used to argue which game was the roughest - and everybody agreed rugby was. It's a great team sport, and to be successful, every person has to play in the same level.

An awful lot of good movies have gone unrecognized, and an awful lot of bad movies have had tremendous recognition. As long as you keep that in mind, you are never really disappointed.

I don't necessarily look for dark themes; they just seem to appear.

There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.

All I know is there's thousands of people in the Academy and a lot of them, the majority of them, haven't won Oscars.A lot of people are crying, I guess.

The U.S. military was segregated 'til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated.

If you think it's going to rain, it will.

One day we will look back and realize that the Barack Obama Presidency was the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.

I've had no problem harnessing anger.

I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that's always amazing to me.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : I don't look at my life too much. I'm always looking forward, not backward.

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don't have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I'm sure he didn't call everybody jerks.

Being comfortable is over-rated.

I'm suffering from oxygen deprivation. It's overwhelming watching your career go by.

FBI philosophy is "Go ahead and make the story you want to make, and hopefully we'll love it." So that's that.

None of the pictures I take a risk in cost a lot, so it doesn't take much for them to turn a profit. We don't deal in big budgets. We know what we want and we shoot it and we don't waste anything. I never understand these films that cost twenty, thirty million dollars when they could be made for half that. Maybe it's because no one cares. We care.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : When you think of a particular director, you think you would have liked to be with them on one particular film and not necessarily on some other one.

Whether you like it or not, you're forced to come to the realization that death is out there. But I don't fear death, I'm a fatalist. I believe when it's your time, that's it. It's the hand you're dealt.

Actors know what actors are insecure about - and they're all insecure.

Well, if you're waiting for a woman to make up her mind, you may have a a long wait.

I've lived through the shooting of movie, the editing and every other process along the way, so it's not for me to really judge it. I'll probably look at it again five years from now to get a fresh feel for it.

Pose? I don't pose. What am I? Paris Hilton or something?

Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort.

I'm more focused on making a scene seem real as opposed to perfect.

When you work with kids, especially, you want to be ready to turn the camera on at a moment's notice.

Everybody puts importance in money on a film set.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

I'm not afraid to look bad on the screen.

My father died very suddenly at sixty-three. Just dropped dead. For a long time afterward, I'd ask myself, Why didn't I ask him to play golf more? Why didn't I spend more time with him? But when you're off trying to get the brass ring, you forget and overlook those little things. It gives you a certain amount of regret later on, but there's nothing you can do about it. So you just forge on.

I don't wanna need you because I can't have you.

When I was a kid, I thought movies just came from air. I thought they just appeared.

Every once and a while somebody writes a script, but even regardless of what age you are, most of the actors would all agree that it's all based upon material and the material has got to spark with you. It may be great material but you think it's great material for somebody else. Or it's great material and I'm perfect for it. So, you just have to make that judgment and if you feel in the mood to do it.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : I always thought of myself as a character actor. I never thought of myself as a leading man.

You know when you're young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they're trying to be old men and they have no idea what that's like? It's just that stupid the other way around.

What I think the mentor gets is the great satisfaction of helping somebody along, helping somebody take advantage of an opportunity that maybe he or she did not have.

I'm not a regrets-type person.

If a person is constantly evolving, constantly reading new material and being exposed to new material and growing in life, then you're becoming, hopefully, a more intelligent and well-rounded individual. If you're not then something's wrong and you're sliding back in the other direction.

Kids piercing themselves, piercing their tongues, what kind of masochism is that? Is it to show you can just take it?

I've done a few special effects movies in my life, so I've gotten that out of my system.

I've always felt that if I examine myself too much, I'll find out what I know and don't know, and I'll burst the bubble. I've gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I'd rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

Scott Eastwood always came in and did a good job. And he's now graduated to better roles, and the chicks are all calling and asking where Scott is. They used to ask where I was. Now they're going, "What about Scott?".

That's one of the actor's secrets: With everything you do, learn something new about yourself.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : If you feel like you've got something to offer you should do it while the iron's hot.

I think Pebble Beach is kind of a unique place on the planet.

I've always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves.

You are always hoping that movie audiences are interested in characters and interested in story values rather than just mindless special effects. But you never know.

If you consider film an art form, as some people do, then the Western would be a truly American art form, much as jazz is.

I'm in the saddle every day playing a screwball. And then somebody comes along and says, "How would you like to go to Italy and Spain and do an Italian/Spanish/German co-production with an Italian director who's only directed one movie?" It wasn't like I was going there to be with Federico Fellini. But something was there, and I thought, Well, I loved this story when it was told by Akira Kurosawa; maybe this is a good idea. That's an instinctive moment. A Fistful of Dollars was made.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : If the director's a communist, whatever, he's a communist. All I care is that he directs. For the actor, the same thing. All you really care is that he comes in and performs.

Everybody is looking for a reason to not to take responsibility for their own actions in hand.

Let's take the work seriously, and not ourselves seriously.

Don't look at me like I've gotten old or something like that.

I'm not one of these guys who sits around saying, 'Gee, I mean, the person had a strange childhood and that's why he's doing this horrible thing. Poor Jeffrey Dahmer. He's just had a bad childhood and that's why he's eating people.' Wait a second! This person should be removed from the planet.

I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.

I don't like showing the technique. I don't like people who say, "Here, I'm going to act, but first I have to bounce off this wall." If you have to bounce off the wall, do it by yourself. Don't feature the technique. My old drama coach used to say, "Don't just do something, stand there." Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

Nobody looks like they did when they were 20, so why not take advantage of the fact that you're changing, emotionally as well as physically?

I found out that a lot of my liberal friends weren't liberal because they weren't liberal about approaching anybody else's ideas, or at least standing for it. They started getting really animalistic about, "I can't even associate with this guy. He's stupid. He's an idiot.".

I had always planned when I started directing in 1970 that after a few years I'd get tired of looking at myself on the screen and say: "Hey, let's not do that any more." But then every once in a while something pops up. I'm not saying it won't happen again but probably the odds get less as you set yourself for roles that fit your age group.

Conflict is the basis of drama. I guess that goes back as long as time has existed as far as mankind is concerned, dating back to the Greek tragedies or the Old Testament. And violence is a form of conflict, so whether that's catharsis or whether that has some socially damaging effect on audiences - I suppose that would just depend.

Clint Eastwood motivational quote : Let's put it this way: there wouldn't be much point in me attending a high-school reunion now because there wouldn't be anybody there. We'd struggle to raise a quorum.

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Clint Eastwood quotes and sayings

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