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I Got On A Horse When I Was About 12 Years Of Age, And Started Galloping Around. My Mother Came Up Said "where Did You Learn To Ride A Horse?" I Said "this Is The First Time I've Ever Been On A Horse" I Just Knew, I Just Felt The Horse.

-William Shatner

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I Got On A

William Shatner

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I Got On A Horse When I Was About 12 Years Of Age, And Started Galloping Around. My Mother Came Up Said "where Did You Learn To Ride A Horse?" I Said "this Is The First Time I've Ever Been On A Horse" I Just Knew, I Just Felt The Horse.

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Within Weeks Of Our Premiere, It Became Obvious That Leonard [nimoy] And The Character Of Spock Were Becoming Something Of A National Phenomenon. ... And To Be Unflatteringly Frank, It Bugged Me. ... [then, Gene Roddenberry] Said To Me The Wisest Thing He Could Possibly Have Uttered. He Said, `don't Ever Fear Having Good And Popular People Around You, Because They Can Only Enhance Your Own Performance. The More You Can Play To These People, The Better The Show.'

Everyone Knows Everything About All Of Us. That's Too Much Knowledge!

I've Never Not Appeared In Front Of A Live Audience For Any Longer Period Than A Month Or Two.

The More Powerful The Villain Is The More Powerful The Hero.

When I'm Interviewing Somebody I Don't Work From Prepared Questions.

I Got On A Horse When I Was About 12 Years Of Age, And Started Galloping Around. My Mother Came Up Said "where Did You Learn To Ride A Horse?" I Said "this Is The First Time I've Ever Been On A Horse" I Just Knew, I Just Felt The Horse.

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No, I Don't Regret Anything At This Point. That May Change On The Next Phone Call, But At The Moment I Don't Regret Anything.

But If You Want To Know The Truth, The Weirdest Thing That Has Happened Has Been My Discovery That People Who Attend The Conventions Are Filled With Love.

My Dad Was Good With Actions.

A Sense Of The Unknown Has Always Lured Mankind And The Greatest Of The Unknowns Of Today Is Outer Space. The Terrors, The Joys And The Sense Of Accomplishment Are Epitomized In The Space Program.

Fate Gives You The Finger And You Accept.

The Ability To Breathe The Air And Drink The Water Will Be What The Wars Will Be About From Here On In. And It's Coming With Alarming Rapidity.

Spencer Tracy Was A Man Who Did Very Much What I Do On A Set, And That Is, He Comes Down And He Does His Job, And Then He Goes Back To His Dressing Room.

Things People Say Strike Me As Amusing, And I Am Prone To Saying Out Loud What Everybody's Thinking.

My Site Has The Whole Thing - Blogs, Information, Video Interviews.

We're All Embers From The Same Fire. Our Ember Winks Out, We're Ashes, We Go Back To The Fire. I Like That Image. There Has To Be A Unifying Theory. I Think There Is A Continuity Of Some Kind, That My Love For My Wife Will Go On Past The Death Of My Body. Nature Is Perfect.

The Truth Can't Be Hidden For Long.

I'm Surfing The Giant Life Wave.

I Envy The People Who Say, 'oh, Well, I've Got My Name In The Golden Book And I'm Going To Be Entered Into The Pearly Gates.'

It's Easy To Say No, I'm Not Going To Do That. I'm Not Leaving The House.

My Kids Say If There's Any Family Dinner That Doesn't Result In Somebody Crying, It's Not A Good Dinner. They Cry Because It Helps Relieve Them Of A Guilt Or Some Onerous Emotional Burden. It's Like A Family Tradition.

A Stage Actor Has To Be 10% Aware Of The Audience As He's Performing.

The Name Shatner Is Austrian And Partly Germanic, And There's Germanic Reticence And Silence Perhaps, But There Is Passion Underneath.

I Guess The Disc Jockey Thought I Was Trying To Sing Or Something So ... They Had Fun With It. But The Reality Was That It Was Something, There Was A Concept Behind It.

Most People, Including Myself, Keep Repeating The Same Mistakes.

What Is Down Will Go Up. At The Same Time, You Have To Be Prepared For What Is Up To Go Down.

My Life Is My Statement And I Try To Be True To Myself And Thusly To Other People. Whatever My Failings Are, They Are Human And I Try To Perfect It Each Day.

I Think Of Doing A Series As Very Hard Work. But Then I've Talked To Coal Miners, And That's Really Hard Work.

Although I'm A Business Major Out Of Mcgill University, I Know Nothing... But Then I Found Out Much Later In Life, Nobody Knows Anything.

Avatar Is A Watershed Movie. We'll Always Refer To Lawrence Of Arabia In The Same Way. We'll Always Look At Avatar And Say, "that's About As Good As It Gets." It's An Enormous Advance, In Every Way, Shape And Form, Of Movie Making.

Good As It Gets

And I Enjoyed The Celebrity And The Creativity That Was Involved In Star Trek.

And That Works For Me. So That If This Is It, You Better Take It At Its Right Proportion. That There Are Serious Things, But Most Things Are Temporal And Ephemeral, And You Should Cultivate That Attitude. That Joy And Love And All The Verities Are What Counts. So I Try Not To Take Too Many Things Seriously, And If I Find Myself Caught Up In The Seriousness Of The Moment, Within A Period Of Time, I'm Able To Cajole Myself Out Of It.

I've Been In A Multimedia Extravaganza For 50 Years And It's Gone By So Quickly That It's Unimaginable. And It's Also A Major Part Of My Life That Has Gone By.

A Tree You Pass By Every Day Is Just A Tree. If You Are To Closely Examine What A Tree Has And The Life A Tree Has, Even The Smallest Thing Can Withstand A Curiosity, And You Can Examine Whole Worlds.

Heroes, Classical Heroes Have The Look Of Eagles, Too. They're Looking Beyond The Immediate Problem And Into The Future.

Getting That Audience Approval Is Always A Question Mark, And It's Always That Flag That Flutters In Front Of You.

So Many Dot-com Companies Were Formulated On Air.

I've Been Approached To Do Some Things With Astronauts And The Preparation That Astronauts Go Through.

I've Got Rock 'n' Roll In My Blood.

The Basic Quality That Any Great Story Must Have Is A Story That Illustrates The Human Condition.

Human Condition

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If We Can Clean Up Our World, I'll Bet You We Can Achieve Warp Drive.

Death Is An Absolute Marvel.

So Bitcoin Is Cyber Snob Currency.

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Divorce Is Simply Modern Society's Version Of Medieval Torture. Except It Lasts Longer And Leaves Deeper Scars. A Divorce Releases The Most Primitive Emotions; The Ugliest, Raw Feelings. Emotionally Wounded People Do Their Best To Inflict Pain Upon The Other Party, But Rather Than Using Claws They Use Divorce Lawyers.

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My Name Is William Shatner, And I Am Canadian!

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Your Cadence Is Your Music.

Writing An Acceptance Speech Gives You The Expectation Of Winning, And You Are Therefore Devastated Or Hurt If You Didn't Win.

I Didn't Want To Do The Sitcom Thing, But I Didn't Know What Else To Do.

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Mystical Experiences

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Exercise? A Jew Doesn't Exercise.

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I See People Putting Text Messages On The Phone Or Computer And I Think, 'why Don't You Just Call?'

Let Women Figure Out Why They Won't Sleep With You. Don't Do Their Work For Them.

I Had A Major In Business, And I Graduated With A Business Degree, But I Was Perhaps The Worst Student To Graduate From That Program.

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I Think Making A Good Film Shot Is Joyful.

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One Of The Advantages Of Being A Captain Is Being Able To Ask For Advice Without Necessarily Having To Take It.

Don't Be Afraid Of Making An Ass Of Yourself. I Do It All The Time And Look What I Got.

I've Discovered That The More Freedom I Have To Be Creative, The More Creative I Become.

My Beautiful Wife Is Dead. She Meant Everything To Me. Her Laughter, Her Tears And Her Joy Will Remain With Me The Rest Of My Life.

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The Mysteriousness And Mystique Of Space Is Such, That Science Fiction Attempts To Tantalize You By Telling You A Story That Could Possibly Be Out There And That's The Appeal Of Science Fiction.

The Pictures Remind You Of Something That Can Never Be Recaptured, The Time Is Gone, The Only Thing You Know Is The Present. That's All That's Knowable And Even The Present Isn't Knowable. The Present Becomes The Past... So You Really Don't Know Anything.

You Need To Be Silly To Be Funny.

I Was Built For The Long Run, Not For The Short Dash, I Guess.

You Cannot Begin To Imagine The Shock I Had When I Came Down On The Floor For The First Time. First Of All, There's This Whole Thing About Playing Sitcom Comedy. I Didn't Want To Do The Sitcom Thing, But I Didn't Know What Else To Do. I Went Slowly. We Went Through The Week Of Rehearsal, Then We Got On The Floor With The Cameras, Which I'm Used To Because Of My Experience In The Old Days. Then Came Camera Day, With An Audience, And It Was Stunning, Enthralling, Exciting And Chaotic. I Had Never Experienced Anything Like That Before, As An Actor. I Was Part Minstrel, Part Actor.

When I Direct And Have To Look At Filmed Scenes Of Myself, I Suck.

Christmas Is Fun Anyway. It's A Myth Organized Over The Years And Gained Different Mythological Qualities As The Years Go By.

You Have To Create Your Life. You Have To Carve It, Like A Sculpture.

People Have An Affinity Towards Things, And You Don't Know Where It Comes From. Mozart Wrote A Symphony When He Was Four, So It's Said; The Theory Is Maybe Because His Father Was A Conductor, It Happened In Vitro, And He Heard The Music Before He Was Born, And By The Age Of Four He Knew How To Write Music.

I Love The Concept Of Togetherness And The Entwinement Of Marriage.

Ads Need To Be Little Pieces Of Entertainment.

I Want To Discover A Truth For Myself That Is Really True. Whether It's A Piece Of Scientific Knowledge, Or A Philosophical Truth.

I Believe In Taking What Happens As Inevitable.

I Believe That When Things Happen, They Happen With A Purpose.

Nobody Could Have Imagined The Phenomenon That 'star Trek' Became. It's Still Almost Impossible To Imagine.

I'm Not Out To Convince Anybody Of Anything.

You And I And Everybody In Show Business And The Entertainment Industry Fly By The Seat Of Our Pants. We Don't Know Quite What Is Going To Happen.

All I Know Is That I Am Constantly Intrigued By Something I'm Doing.

I Had Been In A Shakespeare Company For Three Years And Done A Lot Of Shakespeare. That Was Fun. That Was Interesting.

I Think You Die The Way You Live.

The Idea Of Being A Professional Actor Never Occurred To Anybody, Including Myself, For A Long Time.

Remember - You Can't Beam Through A Force Field. So, Don't Try It.

There Were Many Times When I Kept Silent About Being Jewish As I Got Older, When Jewish Jokes Were Told.

The Great Mystery Of Our Consciousness Is Beyond Our Grasp.

My Understanding Is, The Fans Are So Ravenous In Canada, They Gnaw On The Stars.

Success Should Always Be Just Beyond Your Grasp.

My Dad Died Of A Stroke.

I Did A Movie In Esperanto.

What Have I Done? I've Blundered My Way Through Life. So I Have My Picture On The Wall. The Minute I Die, That Picture Will Start To Yellow And Fade And Eventually Be Gone. Blown In The Wind And Become Part Of The Molecular Structure Of Something Else. These Things We See As "success," They're Non-accomplishments.

My Boy, That Was A Tv Show. I Used A Stunt Double. I Always Use A Stunt Double. Except In Love Scenes. I Insist On Doing Those Myself.

Mythology Needs Heroes And It Needs Villains, It Needs Heroes To Fail, It Needs Heroes To Struggle.

Careers Are Here And They're Gone. No Matter How Great We Think We Are, We're Nothing But The Temples Of Ozymandias-we're Ruins In The Making.

If You Make A Fool Of Yourself, You Can Do It With Dignity, Without Taking Your Pants Down. And If You Do Take Your Pants Down, You Can Still Do It With Dignity.

Is There A God? There Is, But We Don't Know Where. Or Who. And, Indeed, Why.

I'm Interested In Man's March Into The Unknown But To Vomit In Space Is Not My Idea Of A Good Time. Neither Is A Fiery Crash With The Vomit Hovering Over Me.

My Plan Has Always Been To Return To Broadway Every 50 Years.

I Am Curious About Many Things, And Find The World Around Me, And The People And Objects And Things In It, Equally Fascinating. There Is A Great Deal Of That Awe And Wonder In Me.

The Essence Of Paint Ball Is The Fact That When You Get Hit By A Ball Full Of Paint, It Hurts Just Enough To Say, 'ow, I Gotta Get Out Of The Way,' But Not Enough To Say, 'i Quit.'

I've Come To The Conclusion That Athletes, When They Say They Miss The Crowd, Are Not Missing The Sound Of The Crowd. What They're Missing Is The Feeling Inside That Makes The Crowd Roar. It's Not The Roar Of The Crowd, It's The Silence Inside.

When There Are Tiers Of Meaning In An Ad It Intrigues The Audience And They Look For It Again And Again.

Captain Kirk Has Been A Source Of Pleasure And Income For A Long Time.

I Have Been Accused Of Never Saying No.

Sci-fi Films Are The Epic Films Of The Day Because We Can No Longer Put 10,000 Extras In The Scene - But We Can Draw Thousands Of Aliens With Computers.

Stop And Smell The Garlic! That's All You Have To Do.

I Sometimes Find That In Interviews You Learn More About Yourself Than The Person Learned About You.

I Don't Think Of Myself As Being Tied.

A Director Is A Choreographer, Both Politically And Creatively.

Never Buy Anything That Eats While You Sleep.

If There's Anything I'm Not Pompous About, It's Myself Or My Work. But I Seem To Be Able To Play It.

Every Piece Of Entertainment Is Made With The Idea That 'this Is Going To Be Terrific' And 'this Is The Best Thing I've Ever Done' And Then It Hits The Public And Then The Public Tells You Whether It's Good Or Bad.

These People Who Come To Comic-con And Dress Up - All Across The Country, The Rest Of The Population Who Doesn't Understand Are Scoffing At Them.

I'm Coming Little Animal!.

A True Pilot Must Of Necessity Pay Attention To The Seasons, The Heavens, The Stars, The Winds, And Everything Proper To The Craft If He Is Really To Rule A Ship.

My Wife And My Three Kids And My Grandchildren Are My Life, But My Horses And My Dogs Are Everything Else.

Everybody Has Their 15 Minutes, And Those 15 Minutes Should Be Spent In A Private Limo And A Private Plane. It's The Ultimate.

I'm Anxious To Make Another Film.

I'm So Not Ready To Die. It Petrifies Me. I Go Alone. I Go To A Place I Don't Know. It Might Be Painful. It Might Be The End. My Thought Is That It Is The End. I Become Nameless, And I Spent A Lifetime Being Known.

When I Was Out For The Christmas Holidays In School, I Would Go Skiing Up To The Mountains And There They Had Santa On A Sled. Pulled By Horses And Other Reindeer, It Was A Very, Very Picturesque Time And That Struck Me Very Emphatically Then And Has Remained With Me All This Time.

I Did Some Professional Radio Acting As A Teenager, And I Essentially Put Myself Through College With Radio Acting In Montreal. When I Graduated, I Got Jobs In Professional Theatres, Repertory, And Stock Theatres In Canada For A Couple Of Years. And Then I Went To Stratford, Ontario, Where I Spent Three Years With A Shakespeare Company. We Took A Classical Play From Stratford To New York City, And I Got Some Good Notices There And Essentially Stayed And Did Live Television. And That Brings You To The Beginning Of Filming.

I Know Very Little About The Viral, Electronic World, But I Use Twitter To Communicate Not Only Information That I Think Some Of The Fans Want To Hear About But Also Ideas.

Somewhere In University, I Realized That I Hadn't Been To Classes In Months, And I'd Get Tired To The Point Of Narcolepsy Doing Anything Other Than Some Form Of Performing, Directing, Writing, Or Acting.

I Often Conduct Interviews In My Truck.

I Think The Acting Satisfies The Need And Desire For Approval.

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