Quote

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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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
Saying
Break
Means
Breaking
Order
Rules
Better
Exist
Mean
Creativity
Way
Grace
Learning

More quotes by Alan Arkin

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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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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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All I can say is if the part doesn't delight me in some way, or I can't feel any compassion for it, I just can't do it.
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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I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did
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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Improvisation sometimes seemed more like jazz than acting, like verbal jazz, with the actors playing a theme back and forth, and then introducing another theme, incorporating it, somehow trying to work their way all together to a meaning of some kind, or at least a conclusion.
Alan Arkin
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[The business is] more corporate and more formulaic and less experiential.
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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Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.
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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There's a familiarity that sometimes shocks and annoys the hell out of me. People want a relationship with you that they haven't earned.
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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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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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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I know that if I can't move people, then I have no business being an actor.
Alan Arkin
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I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor.
Alan Arkin
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That's what we're all doing, all the time, whether we know it or not. Whether we like it or not. Creating something on the spur of the moment with the materials at hand. We might just as well let the rest of it go, join the party, and dance our hearts out.
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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Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.
Alan Arkin