28 quotes from the timeless actor, Al Pacino
Since 1970, Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino has taken the audience by storm with his performance in movies such as The Godfather, Dick Tracy, and Serpico. His diversity as a performer has been critically acclaimed over the years. He received an Academy Award for his role in Scent of a Woman. And in 2007, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.
Here are 28 quotes from this veteran actor, filmmaker, and screenwriter:
- “Sometimes it’s better to be with the devil you know than the angel you didn’t know.”
- “If you get all tangled up, just tango on.”
- “Forget the career, do the work. If you feel what you are doing is on line and you’re going someplace and you have a vision and you stay with it, eventually things will happen.”
- “The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful – my personal life suffers.”
- “There is no happiness. There is only concentration.”
- “I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
- “All I am is what I am going after.”
- “My first language was shy. It’s only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.”
- “It’s easy to fool the eye but it’s hard to fool the heart.”
- “We live in a world where the more you’re working, the more things you do. It’s a workaday world.”
- “The camera can film my face but until it captures my soul, you don’t have a movie,”
- “Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, but don't swallow.”
- “On any given Sunday you're gonna win or you're gonna lose. The point is – can you win or lose like a man?”
- “I'm an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.”
- “I don't regret anything. I feel like I've made what I would call mistakes. I picked the wrong movie, or I didn't pursue a character, but everything you do is part of you and you get something from it.”
- “The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying - even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.”
- “Sometimes you're fighting corporations and forget that people can talk to each other.”
- “Either I act or I die.”
- “Playing a character is an illusion, and I feel that when you know too much about a person, possibly part of that illusion is disrupted.”
- “The fruit falls off the tree. You don't shake it off before it's ready to fall.”
- “If something is working, don't fix it. Keep going. Go with the glow.”
- “Man is a little bit better than his reputation, and a little bit worse.”
- “If something is working, don't fix it. Keep going. Go with the glow.”
- “If you can identify with people, you can empathize with people and therefore you understand things.”
- “You'll never be alone if you’ve got a book.”
- “I believe in one day at a time; you've got TODAY, that's what you've got.”
- “I am more alive in the theatre than anywhere else, but what I take into the theatre I get from the streets.”
- “Everything changes with age. The parts change with age, your feelings about them change, roles that I would've wanted to play 10 years ago, I don't want to play now.”