Clint Eastwood Quotes

1. I've taken advantage of a few breaks that came along and moved along with them.


2. It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are…It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.

3. My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I'd play 'em over and over.




4. I don't really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

5. As you get older, you're not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn't running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing.

6. Our modern society - especially in the West, and especially now - reveres youth.

7. We boil at different degrees.

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

9. Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.

10. Society is at odds with itself.

11. The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

12. The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your fife, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there's nothing really to talk about.

13. There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't. You just do the best you can.

14. I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

15. I was drafted during the Korean War.

16. I'm not a chick-flick enthusiast.

17. Nowadays, politically, everybody is promising everything. That's the only way you can get elected.

18. Plagiarism is always the biggest thing in Hollywood.





19. I'm a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.

20. I was always respectful of people who were deeply religious because I always felt that if they gave themselves to it, then it had to be important to them. But if you can go through life without it, that's OK, too. It's whatever suits you.

21. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.

22. 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.

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

24. We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has.

25. Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.

26. I do believe in self-help.

27. I tried being reasonable, I didn't like it.

28. People love westerns worldwide. There's something fantasy-like about an individual fighting the elements. Or even bad guys and the elements. It's a simpler time. There's no organized laws and stuff.

29. It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.

30. Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that's what everybody needs to know.


31. Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

32. A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama.

33. 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.







34. I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

35. I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

36. If you're doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don't know what was going on in the person's mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him.

37. They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

38. There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

39. Crimes against children are the most heinous crime. That, for me, would be a reason for capital punishment because children are innocent and need the guidance of an adult society.

40. 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.




41. I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

42. The craving for information is so huge now, and it can be marketed at such a rapid rate.

43. If I'd had good discipline, I might have gone into music.






44. If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

45. My father used to say to me: "Show 'em what you can do, and don't worry about what you're gonna get. Say you'll work for free and make yourself invaluable".

46. When I see a story, I ask: "Is this something I'd like to be in? Is this something I'd like to see? And if I'd like to see it, would I like to tell it?"





47. 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.

48. You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don't want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you're not performing at your best.




49. 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.

50. (to Eli Wallach prior to starting work on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" - "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly") Never trust anyone on an Italian movie. I know about these things. Stay away from special effects and explosives.

51. I'm just a kid - I've got a lot of stuff to do yet.







52. I just think it is important that you realize, that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

53. Drama usually has some sort of intense conflict.


54. It's a very confusing era that we're in.

55. I don't mind telling a dark side.

56. (what he says after a take, instead of "Cut!") That's enough of that shit.

57. I love every aspect of the creation of motion pictures and I guess I am committed to it for life.



58. Right now, the state of the movies in America, there's an awful lot of people hanging on wires and floating across things and comic book characters and what have you. There seems to be a lot of big business in that, a nice return on some of those.

59. Nowadays you'd have many battles before you blow it up, but eventually you'd take it down. And that's okay, I don't heavily quarrel with that, but for me personally, having made films for years and directed for 33 years, it just seems to me that I long for people who want to see a story and see character development. Maybe we've dug it out and there's not really an audience for that, but that's not for me to really worry about.

60. And I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed.

61. This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.

62. Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

63. If a person doesn't change, there's something really wrong with him.


64. In school, I could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey.

65. I became a Republican in 1951, the first year I could vote.

66. The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of a lot of animals.

67. There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.

68. A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.







69. I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more.

70. Men must know their limitations.

71. (on directing) Most people like the magic of having it take a long time and be difficult…but I like to move along, I like to keep the actors feeling like they're going somewhere, I like the feeling of coming home after every day and feeling like you've done something and you've progressed somewhere. And to go in and do one shot after lunch and another one maybe at six o'clock and then go home is not my idea of something to do.

72. I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don't have a toy they'll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.


73. There's really no way to teach you how to act, but there is a way to teach you how to teach yourself to act. That's kind of what it is; once you learn the little tricks that work for you, pretty soon you find yourself doing that.

74. (on trying to get "Million Dollar Baby" made at Warner Bros.) They might have been a little more interested if I said I wanted to do "Dirty Harry 9" or something.

75. In "The Bridges of Madison County" Kincaid's a peculiar guy. Really, he's kind of a lonely individual. He's sort of a lost soul in mid-America. I've been that guy.


76. Whatever success I've had is due to a lot of instinct and a little luck.

77. (on former President Ronald Reagan) Yes, I liked him very much. When he was a former president of the Screen Actors Guild, I don't think he had the vast support that a lot of other presidents have had. So I don't know why that is, it's just the nature of things.

78. I've actually had people come up to me and ask me to autograph their guns.

79. I never considered myself a cowboy, because I wasn't. But I guess when I got into cowboy gear I looked enough like one to convince people that I was.

80. I always cry when I watch myself on screen.

81. Gene Hackman was interesting because I gave the "Unforgiven" script to his agent and he said no, he didn't want to do anything violent. But I went back to him and said: "I know where you're coming from. You get to a certain age and I'm there too, where you don't want to tell a lot of violent stories, but this is a chance to make a great statement".

82. I don't like the wimp syndrome. No matter how ardent a feminist may be, if she is a heterosexual female, she wants the strength of a male companion as well as the sensitivity. The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of well-being in themselves. They don't have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays.

83. 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.

84. And I think it's that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane. Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that.

85. Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff.



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


87. Every story has its demands.

88. (on directing Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover) He could make a lot of money making mechanical genre pictures but he wants to be challenged. And it's much more of a challenge to play someone who doesn't have the slightest thing in common with you.

89. (on the "Rocky" movies) I loved the first one. I always admired Sylvester Stallone's tenacity to go ahead and get that made.








90. (on Angelina Jolie) She's wonderful. To me, she's like a throwback to the women in film of the Forties. Not to say women today aren't great, but back then there was more individuality. They didn't have the same Botox look. Angelina has that great individuality, her own look and her own style. I think she would have been just as big a name in that era, the same as Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman.

91. I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.



92. Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.

93. (on "Million Dollar Baby") It's a tragedy that could have been written by the Greeks or Shakespeare.

94. I've had moments when I've thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there's some vibration, some connection.


95. My old drama coach used to say: "Don't just do something, stand there." Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

96. I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

97. Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

98. I guess any movie actor can become a role model for audiences out there who enjoy him.

99. I haven't been very active in politics.

100. I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that's always nice. And if they don't like them, then too bad.

101. I still work out on a daily basis.







102. 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.

103. You have to feel confident. If you don't, then you're going to be hesitant and defensive, and there'll be a lot of things working against you.


What do you think of Clint Eastwood's quotes?


Feel free to comment and share this blog post if you find it interesting!