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I know that if I can't move people, then I have no business being an actor.
--
Alan Arkin
#Moving
#People
#Actors
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There's a familiarity that sometimes shocks and annoys the hell out of me. People want a relationship with you that they haven't earned.
--
Alan Arkin
#People
#Want
#Sometimes
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It's murder to doubt yourself in life. It took until I was 45 to get to that point. As hard as it is in your work, it's harder in your life. But it can be done.
--
Alan Arkin
#Doubt
#Done
#Murder
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I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did
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Alan Arkin
#Moving
#Eight
#People
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I'm an actor. My life as an actor depends on who sends me what. I'm just taking the best stuff that I can find that's sent my way, regardless of how big or little the paycheck is. I don't want to work for scale anymore. I'm at a point now where, no matter how good something is, I'm not going to kill myself and end up in the hole.
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Alan Arkin
#Actors
#Want
#Littles
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Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.
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Alan Arkin
#Fall
#Thinking
#Risk
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I gotta keep busy. I'm not happy unless I'm working on two, three things.
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Alan Arkin
#Two
#Three
#Busy
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That's what we're all doing, all the time, whether we know it or not. Whether we like it or not. Creating something on the spur of the moment with the materials at hand. We might just as well let the rest of it go, join the party, and dance our hearts out.
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Alan Arkin
#Party
#Heart
#Hands
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Improvisation sometimes seemed more like jazz than acting, like verbal jazz, with the actors playing a theme back and forth, and then introducing another theme, incorporating it, somehow trying to work their way all together to a meaning of some kind, or at least a conclusion.
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Alan Arkin
#Trying
#Acting
#Together
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Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.
--
Alan Arkin
#Relationship
#Honesty
#Wife
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I don't think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare. It keeps it more of a surprise. I don't feel like it has to be a mystery.
--
Alan Arkin
#Thinking
#Doe
#Mystery
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I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.
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Alan Arkin
#Couple
#Guitar
#Groups
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Two-thirds of American movies are extensions of commercials -- they tell you how to feel and they tell you how to think -- rather than letting you figure it out on your own.
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Alan Arkin
#Thinking
#Two
#Figures
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You know what Andy Warhol's sole contribution to this country has been? He made Campbell's Soup a household word.
--
Alan Arkin
#Country
#Soup
#Warhol
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Hollywood is a strange place. The class structure here is more rigid than almost anyplace I've ever experienced. It's made more difficult by the fact that it's constantly changing. You never know what class you belong to unless you're one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time.
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Alan Arkin
#Class
#Two
#Long
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Creativity means learning where the rules exist, and then breaking them! Saying, "It's better this way." But you have to know the rules in order to break them with any grace.
--
Alan Arkin
#Creativity
#Mean
#Order
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Either you're growing or you're decaying; there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.
--
Alan Arkin
#Growing
#Middle
#Standing Still
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"What I've learned about teaching is to refer back to the root of that word, which is educo, which means "to pull from." Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us; to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves."
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Alan Arkin
#Teaching
#Mean
#Ideas
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No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you're gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can't do parenting right.
--
Alan Arkin
#Book
#Reading
#Intuition
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No matter what you do or where you are, you're going to be missing out on something.
--
Alan Arkin
#Missing
#Matter
#Where You Are
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If I'm going to make a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit.
--
Alan Arkin
#Fake
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TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn't use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not. People think they have to have an answer for everything because the guys on TV have an answer for everything. But it's bullsh**t! Reflection is crucial.
--
Alan Arkin
#Taken
#Reflection
#Thinking
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Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.
--
Alan Arkin
#Truth
#Truth Is
#Unfolding
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I read somewhere that some people believe that the entire universe is a matrix of living thought. And I said, "Man, if that's not a definition of God, I don't know what is.
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Alan Arkin
#Believe
#Men
#People
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For many years my acting came from a place of surmounting some enormous obstacle, confronting some stern and faceless judge who would condemn me to a pit of hell if I didn't achieve the "zone," if even for a moment. Not a particularly happy place to work from.
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Alan Arkin
#Years
#Judging
#Acting
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You can begin to see an amalgamation of cultures, the real beginning of one world. Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music. I wonder if people have even noticed what a tremendous cultural signal the Beatles are.
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Alan Arkin
#Real
#Years
#People
