Best 122 quotes of Paul Newman on MyQuotes

Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.

A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.

A feud should live a full and colorful life, and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.

A lot of people have dreams and never do anything about them. When you have ideas and dreams, you do something about it.

A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs.

An actor has to evaluate his own abilities and be honest with himself.

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.

At the beginning of your career, it's 'Who is Paul Newman?' and then it's 'Get me Paul Newman.' Then it's 'Get me a young Paul Newman.' Then it's 'Who is Paul Newman?'

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?

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.

Choose between yesterday and tomorrow.

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

For some players, luck itself is an art

For those of you who like to scarf your popcorn in the sack, the good news is that Newman's Own contains an aphrodisiac.

From salad dressings all blessings flow.

From the very beginning, we bucked tradition. When the experts said that something was "always done" in a certain way, we'd do it our way, which was sometimes the very opposite.

[Getting the truth in the New York Post has been as] difficult as finding a good hamburger in Albania.

Hollywood is a changing world these days. This is one of the things that ought to be changed.

How many honest men do you know? Take the sinners away from the saints, you're lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln.

Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other... You can't spend a lifetime breathing down each other's necks... We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.

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.

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.

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.

I changed my life today. What did you do?

I check my pulse and if I can find it, I know I've got a chance

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.

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.

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 don't like gossip stories. Facts are okay. But when gossips begin making items, that's something else again.

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?

I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me.

If I ever feel like I’m doing something I’ve done before, I scrap it and start over again.

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.

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

If you have no enemies, you have no character. Taking a stand always creates opposition.

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 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 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 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.

I have taken roads that I wished I had not traveled on. And I'm traveling on some pretty exciting ones, too.

I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

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'm a great believer in luck and the extraordinary role that plays in all of our lives.

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'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

In racing, the fastest person wins. It is very simple.

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.

I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.

I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts.

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.