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I try to find out what there is in the character that in a way, you can't put into words. If I could put it into words, then it wouldn't be a performance. And if I do put it into words, as I play it, I start to get boxed in by those words.

Alan Alda

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Alan Alda
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: January 28
Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Podcaster
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Television Director
Television Presenter
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Alphonso Joseph D’Abruzzo
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Boxed
Trying
Performance
Way
Performances
Wouldn
Start
Words
Character
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More quotes by Alan Alda

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Loneliness is everything it's cracked up to be.
Alan Alda
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After a while I started to think of that as an image of something that went a lot deeper than the dead dog, which is you can't bring back anything to life.
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Testosterone Poisoning: … Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’
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I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
Alan Alda
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As I am becoming older, the only thing that speeds up is time.
Alan Alda
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We're highly social animals - I'm told by scientists that what makes us different from other animals is an acute social awareness, which is what has made us so successful.
Alan Alda
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Insanity is just a state of mind.
Alan Alda
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I play tennis non-obsessively. I seem to beat people I play a lot or half the time, so I guess I gravitate to people who are as bad as I am.
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I'm an angry person, angrier than most people would imagine, I get flashes of anger. What works for me is working out when it's useful to use that anger.
Alan Alda
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The one hour live debate in the West Wing that we did was one of the most exciting times for me on stage or on camera, because anything could go wrong.
Alan Alda
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If I can't get the girl, at least give me more money.
Alan Alda
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Our lives depend on good communication. Good communication helps personal relationships, it helps bosses and employees get along better. We rely on it.
Alan Alda
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I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!
Alan Alda
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Republicans are as capable of coming up with great ideas and moving this country along as anyone - they just don't do it.
Alan Alda
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It's not an epitaph. I felt I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out. I'm not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn't interest me.
Alan Alda
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Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Alan Alda
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I was always interested in figuring things out. I'd do experiments, like combining things I found around the house to see what would happen if I put them together.
Alan Alda
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I've played a murderer, so certainly I think I can play a Republican.
Alan Alda
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When does she do all this thinking? We're together all the time but she thinks deeply about things and with feeling and she can remember the facts. We've been married 48 years.
Alan Alda
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For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn't go back.
Alan Alda