Best 67 quotes of Kirk Douglas on MyQuotes

Kirk Douglas

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    Kirk Douglas

    A stroke is a very difficult thing. You get depressed. . . . What I found was this: the cure for depression is to think of others, to do for others. You can always find something to be grateful for.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Being seventy has its advantages. I was outspoken before, but now what have I got to keep quiet about?

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    Kirk Douglas

    Fame is as much about luck as it is about talent, perhaps more.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Fear is a terrible thing. It makes you do awful things.

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    Kirk Douglas

    "Hail to the Chief" was played, and the President got up and made a gracious opening remark. "I've been in this office for six years, and yet every time I hear that music, I turn around wondering who they're playing it for.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I bought the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I paid to have it made into a play and I played in it for six months. I came back and I tried to make it into a movie, without success.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I don't need a critic to tell me I'm an actor. I make my own way. Nobody's my boss. Nobody's ever been my boss.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I felt [It Runs in the Family] it was a picture that, after I'm gone, my family would like to see it. It was a wonderful mixture of people in my family.

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    Kirk Douglas

    If I can get enough signatures, to present an apology to slavery, I will present it to the President. The House of Representatives has already passed the resolution for the apology, but it has to pass the Senate. I think, in spite of all our problems, I think we're in the right direction.

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    Kirk Douglas

    If I have to speak in public, I am terrified.

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    Kirk Douglas

    If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don't think I'd want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.

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    Kirk Douglas

    If you want to know about a man you can find out an awful lot by looking at who he married.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I guess I was a bad boy... Yes, yes, I've had lots of women in my life.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I have a great respect for actors like Clint Eastwood, who's a wonderful director. I think two pictures that I directed were not successful, so I decided not to make any more.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I have always been grateful that my Russian mother and father came to this country to give me a better chance, and I have had a better chance.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I have been trying to create a campaign to have our country make an apology for slavery, for the way that blacks were treated before the Civil War and after the Civil War.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I have one computer that my wife gave me. All I know how to do, and I do it every day, is play Spider Solitaire. And I don't have a cell phone.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I'm a loner clear down deep to my guts.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I'm concerned that the world is a mess. That's why when I wrote my last book, Let's Face It, I dedicated it to the younger generation because, let's face it, the world is in a mess. Right now, the young people will inherit that mess. I think we have to do everything we can.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I'm glad they gave women the right to vote, but sometimes I'm sorry they have the right to smoke. Most women are messy about it, particularly about their lipstick. I don't mind wiping lipstick off myself, but I hate seeing it on cigarettes, napkins and coffee cups! I don't like women with all their beauty machinery showing-curlers, cold cream, mascara brushes. I'd even prefer to not see a woman touch up her lipstick, but I guess that's expecting too much.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I never had any desire to be a film actor. I never thought I was the good-looking movie type, which I assumed they wanted.

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    Kirk Douglas

    In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I remember little things that break my heart. We were coming out of Michael's house one day, and he noticed my shoelaces were undone. He bent down and tied them. I almost cried. To me, it was such a gesture of love.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I think the election of [Barack] Obama was a great step to prove to the world that we believe that all men were created equal. I think it will show that we have humility.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I've played some good guys as well, in Spartacus, Paths of Glory and my favorite picture, Lonely Are the Brave, so I had a mixture of parts in my life.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I was going to play in First Blood, but I suggested to changing it and I dropped out. I said to [Silvester] Stallone, 'You know, I almost stopped you from making millions of dollars,' because in my suggestion, I killed his character at the end of the picture .

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    Kirk Douglas

    I was living in a terrible time when people were being accused of being communists, and they attacked the movie industry, especially the writers. People couldn't work if they were on the blacklist. The studios banned them. It was the most onerous period in movie history. I don't think we have ever had a period so dark as that.

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    Kirk Douglas

    I went to Hollywood to test for Martha Ivers and I thought I was going to play the part that Van Heflin played.But they wanted me to play the part of Barbara Stanwyck's husband, so I played that. Then when I finished the movie, I went back to Broadway and did another flop.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Life is like a B-picture script.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Know what a loner is? He's a born cripple. He's a cripple because the only person he can live with is himself. It's his life, the way he wants to live. It's all for him.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Maybe there is no peace in this world. I don't know ... But I know as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Michael [Douglas] is, I think, a great actor. He's made some very interesting pictures. When he was going to college, I was very proud of him, but when he said, 'Dad, I want to be in a play,' he had a bit part. I went to see it and Michael said, 'Dad, how was I?' I said, 'You were terrible.' I thought he would go on to be a lawyer and in three months, he was in another play and I went and, I must admit, he was great. I think he has been good in everything he's done.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Michael [Douglas] was just leaving the TV series The Streets of San Francisco and he said, 'Dad, let me try it.' I thought, 'Well, if I couldn't make it...' So, I gave it to him and he got the money, the director and the cast. The biggest disappointment for me, I always wanted to play McMurphy. They got a young actor, Jack Nicholson. I thought, 'Oh God. He will be terrible.' Then I saw the picture and, of course, he was great in it! That was my biggest disappointment that turned out to be one of the things I'm most proud of because my son Michael did it. I couldn't do it, but Michael did it.

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    Kirk Douglas

    My children didn't have my advantages; I was born into abject poverty.

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    Kirk Douglas

    My kids never had the advantages I had. I was born poor.

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    Kirk Douglas

    My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was free.

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    Kirk Douglas

    My mother once said, "A beggar must always give to another beggar that's worse off than he is." That has always stuck with me.

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    Kirk Douglas

    My mother, we were a very poor family. When I was a kid, we would be in our little room, and there would be a knock on the door almost every night with a hobo begging for food. Even though we didn't even have enough to eat, my mother always found something to give them.

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    Kirk Douglas

    No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back?

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    Kirk Douglas

    Now, why is it that most of us can talk openly about the illnesses of our bodies, but when it comes to our brain and illnesses of the mind we clam up and because we clam up, people with emotional disorders feel ashamed, stigmatized, and don't seek the help that can make the difference.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Obey the voice within - it commands us to give of ourselves and help others. As long as we have the capacity to give, we are alive

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    Kirk Douglas

    On a crowded bus in Israel, a mother was speaking to her son in Yiddish. An Israeli woman reprimanded her. "You should be speaking Hebrew. Why are you talking to him in Yiddish?" The mother answered, "I don't want he should forget he's a Jew.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Really a bad guy is more interesting, dramatically, than the good guy.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Since my stroke, I have begun to see so many miracles all around me. I look out of the window in my room: verdant grass, silver-tipped oak leaves, tall palm trees gentle swaying as they reach to the sky, masses and masses of roses. All colors, so many shapes, exquisite fragrances.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Sometimes, the thing that ties you down sets you free.

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    Kirk Douglas

    Streets crowded with people strolling, or sitting at outdoor cafes. And always, talking, gesturing, singing, laughing. I liked Rome immediately.Everybody was a performer.

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    Kirk Douglas

    The best wine comes from home, wherever it is.

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    Kirk Douglas

    The biggest lie is the lie we tell ourselves in the distorted visions we have of ourselves, blocking out some sections, enhancing others. What remains are not the cold facts of life, but how we perceive them. That's really who we are.