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The Characters I Have The Least In Common With Are The Ones I Have The Greatest Success With. The Further A Role Is From My Own Experience, The More I Try To Deepen It.

-Paul Newman

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The Characters I Have

Paul Newman

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The Characters I Have The Least In Common With Are The Ones I Have The Greatest Success With. The Further A Role Is From My Own Experience, The More I Try To Deepen It.

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I Can Eat Fifty Eggs.

I Just Hope When My Body Goes, Or When My Mind Does, I Have The Guts To End It The Way Hemingway Did. I Don't Want Anybody Wiping Drool Off My Chin.

I Am Convinced That A Person Is Entitled To As Much Privacy As He Wants. It Should Be His Privilege To Keep Certain Areas Of His Life Out Of The Newspapers.

Where The Hell Are The Singing Cats?

I'm Like A Good Cheese. I'm Just Getting Mouldy Enough To Be Interesting.

From Salad Dressings All Blessings Flow.

For Those Of You Who Like To Scarf Your Popcorn In The Sack, The Good News Is That Newman's Own Contains An Aphrodisiac.

What We Got Here Is A Failure To Communicate.

Now Then, If We Were To Go The Lowest Road And Plaster My Face On The Bottle Of Oil And Vinegar Dressing Just To Line Our Pockets, It Would Sink. But To Go The Low Road To Get To The High Road- Shameless Exploitation For Charity, For The Common Good- Now That's An Idea Worth The Hustle, A Reciprocal Trade Agreement.

Newman's Second Law: Just When Things Look Darkest, They Go Black.

The Only Question I Ever Ask Any Woman Is, 'what Time Is Your Husband Coming Home?'

When The Idea Came Up, (newman's Own) I Said, "are You Crazy? Stick My Face On The Label Of Salad Dressing?" And Then, Of Course, We Got The Whole Idea Of Exploitation And How Circular It Is. Why Not, Really, Go To The Fullest Length, And The Silliest Length, In Exploiting Yourself And Turn The Proceeds Back To The Community?

If You Have No Enemies, You Have No Character.

The Embarrassing Thing Is That My Salad Dressing Is Out-grossing My Films.

To That Extent That You Can Sustain And Maintain That Childlike Part Of Your Personality Is Probably The Best Part Of Acting.

It Seems To Me That The Older I Get, The More Running Around I Do With Less Satisfaction, Just Spinning My Wheels.

The Best Gift You Can Give Yourself Is The Gift Of Possibility.

The Alexander Technique Helped A Long-standing Back Problem And To Get A Good Night's Sleep After Many Years Of Tossing And Turning.

It's Born Of Sheer Laziness. My Signature Dishes Are Salads, Hamburgers And Popcorn. That's Not The Kind Of Stuff That Gets You An Entry In The Distinguished Book Of Culinary Records. Being Known For Great Soufflé Is One Thing But A Good Hamburger? What Would They Say? "yeah, He Really Knew How To Put The Cheese On."

I Cannot Bear To Look At A Film That I Made Before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's No Sense Even Trying To Explain It. I Really Just Can't Watch Myself. I See All The Machinery At Work And It Just Drives Me Nuts, So I Don't Look At Anything.

The Spaghetti Sauce Is A Good Thing To Think About. Morning, Noon, And Night, Think About The Spaghetti Sauce. Think About Hustling Other People To Buy The Spaghetti Sauce.

An Actor Has To Evaluate His Own Abilities And Be Honest With Himself.

If You're Playing A Poker Game And You Look Around The Table And And Can't Tell Who The Sucker Is, It's You.

I Check My Pulse And If I Can Find It, I Know I've Got A Chance

The Big Difference Between People Is Not Between The Rich And The Poor, The Good And The Evil. The Biggest Of All Differences Between People Is Between Those Who Have Had Pleasure In Love And Those Who Haven't.

I Think It's Very Desirable To Be An Individual And A Free Thinker.

I Wasn't Driven To Acting By Any Inner Compulsion. I Was Running Away From The Sporting Goods Business.

A Man Can Only Be Judged By His Actions, And Not By His Good Intentions Or His Beliefs.

If You Have No Enemies, You Have No Character. Taking A Stand Always Creates Opposition.

We All Die, Just A Question Of When.

It Wasn't As Though I Really Made A Commitment To It; There Wasn't Anything Else Around. So I Wasn't Driven To Become An Actor.. It Just Seemed To Be The Thing That I Managed To Do Best.

I Think Hollywood Is In Love With Sequels. If It's Successful Once, Just Jazz It Up And Shoot It Out There Again. I Think It's Unfortunate.

The Only Way We Can Give Our Children The Best Education In The World And Prepare Them For The Next Century Is By Funding The Programs That Serve Them.

I Will Continue To Get Behind The Wheel Of A Racing Car As Long As I Am Able. But That Could All End Tomorrow.

You Can't Be As Old As I Am Without Waking Up With A Surprised Look On Your Face Every Morning: 'holy Christ, Whaddya Know - I'm Still Around!' It's Absolutely Amazing That I Survived All The Booze And Smoking And The Cars And The Career.

How Many Honest Men Do You Know? Take The Sinners Away From The Saints, You're Lucky To End Up With Abraham Lincoln.

A Man Without Enemies Is A Man Without Character.

For Some Players, Luck Itself Is An Art

Sometimes Nothin' Can Be A Real Cool Hand.

When You See The Right Thing To Do, You'd Better Do It.

There Are A Lot Of Drivers Who Can Carry A Car. It Doesn't Happen Very Often Very Successfully. I Think It Takes A Certain Amount Of Sensible Bravery. It's No Good To Be Brave And Just Keep Crashing.

I Have Taken Roads That I Wished I Had Not Traveled On. And I'm Traveling On Some Pretty Exciting Ones, Too.

The Best Thing You Can Give Yourselves...is The Gift Of Possibility. And The Best Thing You Can Give Each Other Is The Pledge To Go On Protecting That Gift In Each Other As Long As You Live.

We Are Such Spendthrifts With Our Lives, The Trick Of Living Is To Slip On And Off The Planet With The Least Fuss You Can Muster. I’m Not Running For Sainthood. I Just Happen To Think That In Life We Need To Be A Little Like The Farmer, Who Puts Back Into The Soil What He Takes Out.

In The Early Days Of Films, The Movie Star In This Country Replaced Royalty. They've Been Demoted Since Then But They're Still Treated As Beings Larger Than Life.

Larger Than Life

People Like To Do What They Used To Do After They've Stopped Being Able To Do It.

I Find It Hard To Believe That Anyone Could Be So Curious About Me That They Would Want To Read That I Wear Underwear Shorts With Green Polka Dots On Them.

The Characters I Have The Least In Common With Are The Ones I Have The Greatest Success With. The Further A Role Is From My Own Experience, The More I Try To Deepen It.

There Are Three Rules For Running A Business; Fortunately, We Don't Know Any Of Them.

I Have Vision And The Rest Of The World Wears Bifocals.

I Think Transitions Are Never That Noticeable, But They Are Always On Their Way. It Has To Do With Distance And Accessibility. People Call It Mellowing, But I Think It's How Available You Are Toward Other People, Or How Much You Distance Yourself.

I'd Like To Be Remembered As A Guy Who Tried - Who Tried To Be Part Of His Times, Tried To Help People Communicate With One Another, Tried To Find Some Decency In His Own Life, Tried To Extend Himself As A Human Being. Someone Who Isn't Complacent, Who Doesn't Cop Out.

There Really Is No Such Thing As A Sick Child; There Are Children Who Happen To Be Sick. Think About It, And You Will Understand The Magic Of The Camps

Natural Law. Sons Are Put On This Earth To Trouble Their Fathers.

Fill The Moment And Find Variety.

Watching Something Is Nothing Like Doing It.

I Never Ask My Wife About My Flaws. Instead I Try To Get Her To Ignore Them And Concentrate On My Sense Of Humor.

It's Really Important To Be Attentive To The People Who Have Less - Who Are Less Fortunate Than You Are.

It's Like Chasing A Beautiful Woman For 80 Years. Finally, She Relents And You Say, 'i'm Terribly Sorry. I'm Tired.'

It's Been A Privilege To Be Here.

...." I Was Rather Discouraged When I Discovered That Paul And Hotch Had No Marketing Survey, No Business Plan, No Budget, No Organized Strategy For The Introduction Of The Sauce. When Asked About This Lack Of Preparation, The Haphazard Nature Of Their Business, Paul Said, 'me In This Business Is Just Part Of Life's Great Folly. Stay Loose, Men, Keep 'em Off Balance.'"

No Sense In Being A Grifter If It's The Same As Being A Citizen.

Men Experience Many Passions In A Lifetime. One Passion Drives Away The One Before It.

I'm A Supporter Of Gay Rights. And Not A Closet Supporter Either. From The Time I Was A Kid, I Have Never Been Able To Understand Attacks Upon The Gay Community. There Are So Many Qualities That Make Up A Human Being... By The Time I Get Through With All The Things That I Really Admire About People, What They Do With Their Private Parts Is Probably So Low On The List That It Is Irrelevant.

Who's To Say Who's An Expert?

Our Marriage Works Because We Each Carry Clubs Of Equal Weight And Size.

People Stay Married Because They Want To, Not Because The Doors Are Locked.

I Wasn't Running Toward The Theater But Running Away From The Sporting Goods Store. Of Course Now That I'm Selling Spaghetti Sauce (with Newman's Own), I Begin To Understand The Romance Of Business.. The Allure Of Being The Biggest Fish In The Pond And The Juice You Get From Beating Out Your Competitors.

The First Time I Remember Women Reacting To Me Was When We Were Filming Hud In Texas. Women Were Literally Trying To Climb Through The Transoms At The Motel Where I Stayed. At First, It's Flattering To The Ego. At First. Then You Realize That They're Mixing Me Up With The Roles I Play - Characters Created By Writers Who Have Nothing To Do With Who I Am.

The Problem With Getting Older Is You Still Remember How Things Used To Be.

Well, I'm Not Able To Work Anymore As An Actor And Still At The Level I Would Want To ... You Start To Lose Your Memory, You Start To Lose Your Confidence, You Start To Lose Your Invention. So, That's Pretty Much A Closed Book For Me. And I'm Grateful For The Other Things That Have Come Into My Life: Grandkids, And Restaurants And Charity ... I've Been Doing It For 50 Years. That's Enough.

Once I Started Taking Drama Classes, I Asked Myself Why I Had Ever Wasted So Much Time On A Football Team.

I Wish I Could Recall With Clarity The Impulse That Compelled Me To Help Bring This Camp Into Being. I'd Be Pleased If I Could Announce A Motive Of Lofty Purpose. I've Been Accused Of Compassion, Of Altruism, Of Devotion To Christian, Hebrew, And Muslim Ethic, But However Desperate I Am To Claim Ownership Of A High Ideal, I Cannot. I Wanted, I Think, To Acknowledge Luck; The Chance Of It, The Benevolence Of It In My Life, And The Brutality Of It In The Lives Of Others, Made Especially Savage For Children Because They May Not Be Allowed The Good Fortune Of A Lifetime To Correct It.

There Are Many Ingredients That Go Into Making A Film. It Baffles Me, What Works And What Doesn't.

Hollywood Is A Changing World These Days. This Is One Of The Things That Ought To Be Changed.

While Progress Should Never Come To A Halt, There Are Many Places It Should Never Come To At All.

I Believe There Can Be Dignity In The Acting Profession. And I Think There Ought To Be More Dignity In The Publicity An Actor Gets.

Almost Everything I Learned About Being An Actor Came From Those Early Years At The Actor's Studio.

I Would Like It If People Would Think That Beyond Newman, There's A Spirit That Takes Action, A Heart, And A Talent That Doesn't Come From My Blue Eyes.

I Like Racing But Food And Pictures Are More Thrilling. I Can't Give Them Up. In Racing You Can Be Certain, To The Last Thousandth Of A Second, That Someone Is The Best, But With A Film Or A Recipe, There Is No Way Of Knowing How All The Ingredients Will Work Out In The End. The Best Can Turn Out To Be Awful And The Worst Can Be Fantastic. Cooking Is Like Performing And Performing Like Cooking.

I Don't Go For The So-called "intimate" Stuff. Column Items That Report: "minerva Ferncroft Sleeps In Pink Dusting Powder Between Puce-colored Sheets In A Heart-shaped Bed." It Leaves Me Cold.

I'm A Great Believer In Luck And The Extraordinary Role That Plays In All Of Our Lives.

I Respect Generosity In People, And I Respect It In Companies Too, I Don't Look At It As Philanthropy; I See It As An Investment In The Community.

Acting Isn't Really A Creative Profession. It's An Interpretative One.

[getting The Truth In The New York Post Has Been As] Difficult As Finding A Good Hamburger In Albania.

What Could Be Better Than To Hold Your Hand Out To People Less Fortunate Than You Are?

I Don't Like Gossip Stories. Facts Are Okay. But When Gossips Begin Making Items, That's Something Else Again.

Well, The Nice Thing About Animation, You Don't Even Really Have To Account For Yourself. All Of The Physical Stuff That You Work On As An Actor, You Just Throw Away.

Choose Between Yesterday And Tomorrow.

Decision Making

So I've Worked Really Hard, Because Nothing Ever Came Easily To Me.

Those With A Moral Deficit Put On A Good Show, And Sleep Like A Baby.

I Really Just Can't Watch Myself. I See All The Machinery At Work And It Just Drives Me Nuts.

You Can't Really Appreciate Anonymity Until You've Lost It. People Say That's Sour Grapes, But It Really Isn't To Be Able To Walk Down The Street Without People Paying Attention To You Is A Real Blessing And You Lose It When You Become An Actor.

I Have An Extraordinary Attention Span. I Manage To Juggle Two Or Three Different Ideas At The Same Time, And That's Probably, If I Have A Gift, That's Probably The Best Gift That's Given Me.

I Changed My Life Today. What Did You Do?

Changed My Life

I'd Done Some Acting In High School. Then I Went To Kenyon College And Got Thrown In Jail And Kicked Off The Football Team. Since I Was Determined Not To Study Very Much, I Majored In Theater The Last Two Years. Got My Degree In Speech; They Didn't Actually Have A Degree In Theater. I Graduated At Two O'clock In The Afternoon, And At Three-thirty I Was On The Train For Williams Bay, Wisconsin, For Summer Stock, And Then I Did Winter Stock.

Being On President Nixon's Enemies List Was The Highest Single Honor I've Ever Received. Who Knows Who's Listening To Me Now And What Government List I'm On?

The Accusation Is Always On The First Page, And The Retraction On Page 19.

It's Always Darkest Before It Turns Absolutely Pitch Black.

I Have Taken Roads That I Wished I Had Not Traveled On. And I'm Traveling On Some Pretty Exciting Ones, Too. Just Hope When You Get To That Great Racetrack In The Sky, That The Balance Will Tip Slightly Into Those Things That You'd Be Proud Of.

Twenty-five Years Ago I Couldn`t Walk Down The Street Without Being Recognized. Now I Can Put A Cap On, Walk Anywhere And No One Pays Me Any Attention. They Don`t Ask Me About My Movies And They Don`t Ask Me About My Salad Dressing Because They Don`t Know Who I Am. Am I Happy About This? You Bet.

Admit It. I'm The Best You Ever Seen, Fats. I'm The Best There Is. And Even If You Beat Me, I'm Still The Best.

A Dollar Won Is Twice As Sweet As A Dollar Earned.

You Discover A Lot Of Things On Your Feet And If You Don't Have Any Rehearsal, Then Anything That Happens On The Screen Is By Accident.

So You Wound Up With Apollo/if He's Sometimes Hard To Swallow/use This.

Building Weapons That We Don't Need, Don't Work, And Aren't Necessary, And Have No Mission That's Not Bad Politics, That's Robbery.

I Certainly Never Expected To Be A Professional Actor. I Never Expected To Be In Movies. I Thought I Would Probably Become A Teacher.

I'm A Very Competitive Person. I Always Have Been. And It's Hard To Be Competitive About Something As Amorphous As Acting. But You Can Be Competitive On The Track, Because The Rules Are Very Simple And The Declaration Of The Winner Is Very Concise.

I Had No Natural Gift To Be Anything - Not An Athlete, Not An Actor, Not A Writer, Not A Director, A Painter Of Garden Porches - Not Anything. So I've Worked Really Hard, Because Nothing Ever Came Easily To Me.

I Picture My Epitaph: 'here Lies Paul Newman, Who Died A Failure Because His Eyes Turned Brown.

Make Sure You Live Life, Which Means Don't Do Things Where You Court Celebrity, And Give Something Positive Back To Our Society.

The Need Is Great And So Are The Opportunities To Make A Difference.

Making A Difference

I've Been Accused Of Being Aloof. I'm Not. I'm Just Wary.

I Was Always A Character Actor. I Just Looked Like Little Red Riding Hood.

Dreams Without Movement Are Delusions, Escapes, Kid’s Play. You Have To Put Your Feet Into Your Dreams If They’re Ever Going To Be Reality. The Dreamers We Know And Love Today Are The Ones Who Worked The Hardest

A Rebel Is A Nonconformist Who Is Constantly Saying No, And I'm Not That. I'm A Conformist And I Believe In Progress, And You Can't Make Much Progress By Saying No All The Time. A Rebel Is Destructive. I Know I Have Something Constructive To Offer.

Newman's First Law: It Is Useless To Put On Your Brakes When You're Upside Down.

You Only Grow When You Are Alone.

We've Polluted The Stratosphere With These Chlorine And Bromine Compounds, And Because It's Now Colder, And Because We Have This Change In The Climate, We're Getting More Ozone Loss Than We Would Have Gotten In A Normal Year.

If You Don't Have Enemies, You Don't Have Character.

It's Absolutely Amazing That I Survived All The Booze And Smoking And The Cars And The Career.

You Can't Be As Old As I Am Without Waking Up With A Surprised Look On Your Face Every Morning.

In Racing, The Fastest Person Wins. It Is Very Simple.

If I Ever Feel Like I’m Doing Something I’ve Done Before, I Scrap It And Start Over Again.

Acting Is Like Letting Your Pants Down; You're Exposed.

I Started My Career Giving A Clinic In Bad Acting In The Film, "the Silver Chalice," And Now I'm Playing A Crusty Old Man Who's An Animated Automobile [in "cars"]. That's A Creative Arc For You, Isn't It?

A Lot Of People Have Dreams And Never Do Anything About Them. When You Have Ideas And Dreams, You Do Something About It.

You Can't Stop Being A Citizen Just Because You Have A Screen Actors' Guild Card.

You Got To Have Two Things To Win. You Got To Have Brains And You Got To Have Balls. Now You've Got Too Much Of One And Not Enough Of The Other.

I Was Terrorized By The Emotional Requirements Of Being An Actor. Acting Is Like Letting Your Pants Down; You're Exposed.

I Don't Like To Discuss My Marriage, But I Will Tell You Something Which May Sound Corny But Which Happens To Be True. I Have Steak At Home. Why Should I Go Out For Hamburger?

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