Al Pacino famous quotes

It's easy to fool the eye but it's hard to fool the heart.
-- Al Pacino

#Heart #Eye #Fool

The literal, basic thing of the stage is really like a magnet. It brings me back to earth.
-- Al Pacino

#Earth #Stage #Magnet

All I am is what I'm going after.
-- Al Pacino

I always had this thing, when I was younger especially, I didn't want to do movies that much. I found they took a lot out of you and they were exhausting for me in a lot of ways.
-- Al Pacino

#Want #Way #Found

I'm an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.
-- Al Pacino

#Stars #Heart #Swimming

Opinions I have about anything are in my personal life.
-- Al Pacino

#Opinion #Personal Life

They say we die twice - once when the last breath leaves our body and once when the last person we know says our name.
-- Al Pacino

#Death #Names #Dying

The difference between the actor and the painter is that the actor would buy somebody a knish in order to have them watch him act.
-- Al Pacino

#Order #Differences #Watches

I'm constantly striving to break through to something new. You try to maintain a neutral approach to your work, and not be too hard on yourself.
-- Al Pacino

#Trying #Strive #Break

Sometimes the only way you can get an audience is at an audition.
-- Al Pacino

#Way #Auditions #Sometimes

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.
-- Al Pacino

#Careers #Vision #Acting

When you're reading some of the great plays, when you do what I call "taking up with a writer," something happens.
-- Al Pacino

#Reading #Play #Things Happen

I don’t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians… it’s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it’s not who you love… a man, a woman, what have you… it’s the fact that you love. That is all that truly matters.
-- Al Pacino

#Gay #Men #Hatred

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.
-- Al Pacino

#Character #Too Much #Illusion

It wasn't until I got older that I realized acting was something I could really do.
-- Al Pacino

#Acting #I Realized

[Marlon] Brando's a giant on every level. When he acts it's as if he landed from another planet. A planet where they produce great actors.
-- Al Pacino

#Giants #Actors #Levels

On any given Sunday you're gonna win or you're gonna lose. The point is -- can you win or lose like a man?
-- Al Pacino

#Sunday #Winning #Men

There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
-- Al Pacino

#Father #Enemy #Rooms

The actor becomes an emotional athlete.
-- Al Pacino

#Athlete #Emotional #Actors

I'm so shy now I wear sunglasses everywhere I go.
-- Al Pacino

#Sunglasses #Shy

I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.
-- Al Pacino

#Disappointment #Opportunity #Thinking

Freedom, baby, is never having to say youre sorry.
-- Al Pacino

#Baby #Sorry

The camera can film my face but until it captures my soul, you don't have a movie,
-- Al Pacino

#Soul #Cameras #Faces

My weaknesses... I wish I could come up with something. I'd probably have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. Maybe they're the same thing.
-- Al Pacino

#Wish #Weakness #Euthanasia

Either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.
-- Al Pacino

#Team #Challenges #Individual

Vanity is my favourite sin.
-- Al Pacino

#Vanity #Sin #Favourite

The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.
-- Al Pacino

#Talking #Years #Way

Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don't believe me when I tell them. That's how I saw myself, in comedy.
-- Al Pacino

#Believe #People #Saws

The only thing in this world that gives orders is balls.
-- Al Pacino

#Order #Giving #Balls

I hope the perception is that I'm an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.
-- Al Pacino

#Stars #Perception #Actors

My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.
-- Al Pacino

#Shy #Firsts #Language

We start to realize that there are anodynes in life that help us through the day. I don't care if it's a walk in the park, a look out the window, a good bubble bath - whatever. Even a meal you like, or a friend you want to call. That helps us solve all this stuff in our head.
-- Al Pacino

#Parks #Baths #Meals

You'll never be alone if you’ve got a book.
-- Al Pacino

#Book

That's the way to live - around people who care. It may be a tough ride, but something is going to come out of it.
-- Al Pacino

#People #Who Cares #May

There is no happiness. There is only concentration.
-- Al Pacino

#Concentration

I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.
-- Al Pacino

#Truth #Lying #Acting

It turned out that time doesn't heal the wound , but in its so merciful way , blunts the edges ever so slightly
-- Al Pacino

#Way #Heal #Wounds

sometimes it's better to be with the devil u know than the angel u didn't know
-- Al Pacino

#Angel #Devil #Sometimes

My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn't know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother.
-- Al Pacino

#Mother #Dad #War

It surprised me, the feeling I got when I won the Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman.' It was a new feeling. I'd never felt it. I don't see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.
-- Al Pacino

#Winning #Feelings #Gold

I don't need bodyguards. I'm from the South Bronx.
-- Al Pacino

#Needs #Bronx #Bodyguard

I want to be a great actor someday, and I've decided there's no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.
-- Al Pacino

#Acting #Use #Actors

You need some insecurity if you're an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven't yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most actors just fade away like old soldiers.
-- Al Pacino

#Thinking #Insecurity #Soldier

Shakespeare's plays are more violent than 'Scarface.'
-- Al Pacino

#Inspirational #Play #Violent

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful - my personal life suffers.
-- Al Pacino

#Athlete #Emotional #Suffering

When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I'd go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.
-- Al Pacino

#Mother #Home #Actors

The truth is, you know, we need our anodynes. You know that word, anodynes? We need that in life some times. A good warm bath can be one for you, or a whatever.
-- Al Pacino

#Needs #Baths #Truth Is

I've never cared for guns. In fact, when I did 'Scent of a Woman' I had to learn how to assemble one.
-- Al Pacino

#Gun #Scent #Facts

Francis Ford Coppola did this early on. You tape a movie, like a radio show, and you have the narrator read all the stage directions. And then you go back like a few days later and then you listen to the movie. And it sort of plays in your mind like a film, like a first rough cut of a movie.
-- Al Pacino

#Cutting #Play #Mind

At this point in my career, I don't have to deal with audition rejections. So I get my rejection from other things. My children can make me feel rejected. They can humble you pretty quick.
-- Al Pacino

#Children #Humble #Careers

When I was doing 'Scarface,' I remember being in love at that time. One of the few times in my life. And I was so glad it was at that time. I would come home and she would tell me about her life that day and all her problems and I remember saying to her, look, you really got me through this picture because I would shed everything when I came home.
-- Al Pacino

#Home #Being In Love #Looks

In America most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.
-- Al Pacino

#Italian #America #Half

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.
-- Al Pacino

#Crazy #Nice #People

There are a lot of roles in Shakespeare, basically. If I feel that the script is a movie, I would be interested in doing any role of Shakespeare's.
-- Al Pacino

#Would Be #Roles #Scripts

When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I'm going to do a big scene that's dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.
-- Al Pacino

#Trying #Actors #Serious

Jamie Foxx does a good rendition of me. It's a real gift, mimicry of that kind, the tonal thing. It's sort of like having a talent for playing an instrument.
-- Al Pacino

#Real #Doe #Mimicry

Without coffee something’s missing
-- Al Pacino

#Coffee #Missing

It's not personal, it's strictly business
-- Al Pacino

A lot of acting is private time.
-- Al Pacino

#Acting

Our life is looking forward or looking back, that's it. Where is the moment?
-- Al Pacino

#Decision #Looking Forward #Life Is

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff, or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?
-- Al Pacino

#Mean #Opportunity #Trying

I am more alive in the theater than anywhere else, but what I take into the theater I get from the streets.
-- Al Pacino

#Alive #Theater #Streets

Either I act or I die.
-- Al Pacino

#Acting

All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don't think I would be on 'Dancing with the Stars,' mainly because I would be too shy.
-- Al Pacino

#Stars #Thinking #Dancing

The thing is doing it, that's what it's all about. Not in the results of it. After all what is a risk? It's a risk not to take risks. Otherwise, you can go stale and repeat yourself. I don't feel like a person who takes risks. Yet there's something within me that must provoke controversy because I find it wherever I go. Anybody who cares about what he does takes risks.
-- Al Pacino

#Risk #Acting #Who Cares

There is only one way of surviving all the early heartbreaks in this business. You must have a sense of humor. And I think it also helps if you are a dreamer. I had my dreams all right. And that is something no one can ever take away. They cost nothing, and they can be as real as you like to make them. You own your dreams and they are priceless. I've been a lavatory attendant, a theatre usher, a panhandler, all for real. Now, as an actor, I can be a journalist today and a brain surgeon tomorrow. That's the stuff my dreams are made of.
-- Al Pacino

#Dream #Real #Thinking

Sometimes what we imagine and the world aren't different things. Sometimes they are the same exact thing.
-- Al Pacino

#Dream #Vision #Different

You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God... and where can you go from there?
-- Al Pacino

#Dream #Ego #Grease

You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is.
-- Al Pacino

#Mouths #Shots

I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.
-- Al Pacino

#Real #Scripts #Helping

It's never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you - you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you spend a lot of time waiting around.
-- Al Pacino

#Morning #Fun #Waiting

I've always been in the theater. I've always gone to it. That's been my way to cope. Early on in my career, I remember running - fleeing - to the theater as a way of coping with all the meshugaas that was going on for me.
-- Al Pacino

#Running #Careers #Fleeing

I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.
-- Al Pacino

#Believe #Writing #Character

It would be hard to play a character you don't like - for me anyway - or can't find something in them to like.
-- Al Pacino

#Character #Play #Would Be

I've often said there's two kinds of actors. There's a more gregarious type and the shy type.
-- Al Pacino

#Two #Shy #Actors

A kiss is a lusty dollop of dessert to be served with desire and savored with passion.
-- Al Pacino

#Passion #Kissing #Desire

Man is a little bit better than his reputation, and a little bit worse
-- Al Pacino

#Men #Littles #Reputation

There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.
-- Al Pacino

#Self #Doubt #Events

Actually, the person I related to was James Dean. I grew up with the Dean thing. Rebel Without A Cause had a very powerful effect on me.
-- Al Pacino

#Powerful #Rebel #Causes

Learning (Shakespeare's plays) ...in school was a bit of a bore.
-- Al Pacino

#Education #Learning #School

Be careful how you judge people, most of all friends. You don't sum up a man's life in one moment.
-- Al Pacino

#Men #People #Judging

That's where humour lives for me. In the body. The Steve Martin kind of stuff or Jim Carrey, that's what I like. I've always felt that's what I would like to do.
-- Al Pacino

#Body #Stuff #Kind

Our ability to manufacture fraud now exceeds our ability to detect it.
-- Al Pacino

#Fraud #Ability

What's this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?
-- Al Pacino

#Theatre