Best 152 quotes of William Shatner on MyQuotes

Acting is easier - writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious.

Ads need to be little pieces of entertainment.

All in all, Kirk's character is something I am very proud of.

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.

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.

A pretty girl is certainly comparable to a good horse.

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.

A series is filled with compromises.

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.

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.

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.

Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell! I rest my case.

Being an icon is overrated, remember an icon can be moved by a mouse

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.

Captain Kirk has been a source of pleasure and income for a long time.

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.

Christmas is fun anyway. It's a myth organized over the years and gained different mythological qualities as the years go by.

Conquest is easy. Control is not.

Divorce is probably as painful as death.

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.

Don’t waste your time trying to get into my head. There's nothing there.

Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life.

Even one word, or certainly one sentence, should be able to describe the basic characteristic that the scene has, or the character has, or the story has. And then you begin to detail that one spine, and you have offshoots from that spine, and it becomes more and more complex, but all of it stems from that one-word, one-line theme, which can give the character, the scene, or the play its uniqueness.

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.

Exercise? A Jew doesn't exercise.

Fate gives you the finger and you accept.

Getting that audience approval is always a question mark, and it's always that flag that flutters in front of you.

Gradually the live TV scene simmered out, replaced by film, and that took place in L.A. So many actors left New York.

Has it ever occurred to you that how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life?

Here's something pompous - you take your day and artistically create it, so every moment has an artistic flavor.

Heroes, classical heroes have the look of eagles, too. They're looking beyond the immediate problem and into the future.

I also derive a great deal of pleasure from horses and dogs... the ocean... and love.

I always thought that the spine of a character was awe and wonder.

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.

I believe in taking what happens as inevitable.

I believe that when things happen, they happen with a purpose.

I can't stand the gossip of celebrities' lives, all the time! Every minute!

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 don't think of myself as being tied.

I don't want people to know me. I want them to believe my version.

I enjoyed reading all the classic authors like Isaac Asimov and Bradbury.

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.'

I existed before Star Trek. I started in live television. I was there when the cameras were as big as a table, had internal fans that were whirring and tubes that, because of the heat, had to come right up to our face for a close-up. Now, we are talking about green screen and putting us in locations that we'll never visit. What has happened to us is a miracle, and the miracle is our inventiveness. The tragedy of our lives is also our inventiveness.

If saving money is wrong, I don't want to be right!

If there's anything I'm not pompous about, it's myself or my work. But I seem to be able to play it.

If we can clean up our world, I'll bet you we can achieve warp drive.

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.

If you read my books, especially the Star Trek books and the Quest for Tomorrow books, you'll see in them the core theme of the basic humanistic questions that Star Trek asked.

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.

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.