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No matter what you do or where you are, you're going to be missing out on something.

Alan Arkin

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Alan Arkin
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: March 26
Actor
Character Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Musician
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Singer
New York City
New York
Alan Wolf Arkin
Missing
Matter
Going
Something

More quotes by Alan Arkin

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I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.
Alan Arkin
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'Catch-22' was a huge failure, and it rubbed off on everybody connected to it. I had a bunch of lean years where I had to do things, a lot of which I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about.
Alan Arkin
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You can begin to see an amalgamation of cultures, the real beginning of one world. Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music. I wonder if people have even noticed what a tremendous cultural signal the Beatles are.
Alan Arkin
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What I've learned about teaching is to refer back to the root of that word, which is educo, which means to pull from. Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves.
Alan Arkin
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A product is most easily sold when it has an identity. So they wrap you all up and put a label on you. And then that's what you have to be. But what I'm looking for is the opportunity to explore what I can do, probing the limits, learning.
Alan Arkin
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If you want to be an actor and you love acting, you can do it whether you're doing something else or not. You can be connected with community theater or make your own little movies. But, if you want to be a movie star, you've got a tough road ahead of you.
Alan Arkin
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I'm an actor. My life as an actor depends on who sends me what. I'm just taking the best stuff that I can find that's sent my way, regardless of how big or little the paycheck is. I don't want to work for scale anymore. I'm at a point now where, no matter how good something is, I'm not going to kill myself and end up in the hole.
Alan Arkin
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I don't believe there's anything in life you can't go back and fix. The ancient Vedas - the oldest Hindu philosophy - and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that's true, there's no such thing as a past or a future - it's all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future.
Alan Arkin
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No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you're gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can't do parenting right.
Alan Arkin
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If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit.
Alan Arkin
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For many years my acting came from a place of surmounting some enormous obstacle, confronting some stern and faceless judge who would condemn me to a pit of hell if I didn't achieve the zone, if even for a moment. Not a particularly happy place to work from.
Alan Arkin
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I don't think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare. It keeps it more of a surprise. I don't feel like it has to be a mystery.
Alan Arkin
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Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.
Alan Arkin
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TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn't use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not. People think they have to have an answer for everything because the guys on TV have an answer for everything. But it's bullsh**t! Reflection is crucial.
Alan Arkin
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I don't live in L.A. on purpose because I don't wanna be immersed in that. I have to have a real life, with real people, in order to inform what I'm doing otherwise, it just becomes the snake eating its own tail. Vampirism.
Alan Arkin
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I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
Alan Arkin
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I gotta keep busy. I'm not happy unless I'm working on two, three things.
Alan Arkin
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Creativity means learning where the rules exist, and then breaking them! Saying, It's better this way. But you have to know the rules in order to break them with any grace.
Alan Arkin
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It's murder to doubt yourself in life. It took until I was 45 to get to that point. As hard as it is in your work, it's harder in your life. But it can be done.
Alan Arkin
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Either you're growing or you're decaying there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.
Alan Arkin