— I have character.
— Because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.
But talkin' about it and bein' it… that's two different things. It's real hard to be free… when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. 'Course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free… 'cause then they gonna get real busy killin' and maimin'… to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they gonna talk to you and talk to you and talk to you… about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. Well, it don't make 'em runnin' scared. No. It makes 'em dangerous.
There are some people who are so nondescript that if their identities were stolen it would be an improvement.
Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground like a skyscraper
We only have so much to give, don’t we? And up there I’m not myself, or perhaps more correctly I’m a succession of selves. We must all be a profound mixture of selves, don’t you think? To me, acting is first and foremost intellect, and only after that, emotion. The one liberates the other, and polishes it. There’s so much more to it than simply crying or screaming or producing a convincing laugh. It’s wonderful, you know. Thinking myself into another self, someone I might have been, had the circumstances been there. That’s the secret. Not becoming someone else, but incorporating the role into me as if she was myself. And so she becomes me.
I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores.