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[Mark] Twain is pointing at you. You, the reader of the book one hundred and thirty years ago and today. That is what has made it a great American novel and the most widely read book in American Literature around the world today.

Hal Holbrook

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Hal Holbrook
Age: 95 †
Born: 1925
Born: February 17
Died: 2021
Died: January 23
Actor
Character Actor
Film Actor
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Cleveland
Ohio
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr.
Made
Novel
Years
Literature
Twain
World
American
Widely
Read
Pointing
Around
Thirty
Today
Mark
Book
Reader
Great
Hundred

More quotes by Hal Holbrook

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I developed a resistance to authority. Not to discipline - I learned that. But to authority. I like to think for myself. And I like to cause trouble.
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Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that's got true religion, several of them.
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I have a suicide impulse.
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I've had a very full career in the theater, on stage, in films and on television.
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Why do I keep performing at my age? What else am I going to do? Play golf? I tried that years ago and all I did was cuss. I can do that without the walk, cuss at Congress and let [Mark]Twain do it. Imagine that you were an idiot. And then imagine that you were a member of Congress. Wait - I've repeated myself.
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Success is no longer content. It's how it sells.
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One of the problems with putting Huck Finn into a movie or on the stage is, you always make the white people stupid and racist. The point is, they don't know they're racist.
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When the audience begins to see the sunrise on that it's hard for them to turn away from it because they're listening to a man talking to them from over a century ago. And nothing has changed. So what are you going to do about that?
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There's no good guys and bad guys.
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Look, see, learn, become a citizen of Mankind, not just Hannibal, Missouri. That is the message of [Mark] Twain.
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I think I may drop dead on the stage someday. I hate to think of it. But it's getting tough on me, the travel. The show, I somehow manage to rise up to it, you know. But I have no desire to retire.
Hal Holbrook
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To communicate with each other, we got to get mad at each other sometimes.
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[Mark] Twain was a publisher. He published General Grant's Memoirs (a big success) and had a hand in the publishing of many of his own books. He would, I think, be very keen about the question of how a book would sell.
Hal Holbrook
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Please don't refer to me as channeling Mark Twain. I'm an actor. Not a channeler. That word is an iPhone shortcut. Acting is more eloquent than that.
Hal Holbrook
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I never, ever update Mark Twain. I don't modernize it. I let the audience update the material. When I go out on stage, I'm trying to make the audience believe they're looking at this guy who died 104 years ago and listening to him and saying to themselves, Jesus, he could be talking about today. And that's the point.
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I tended to lean toward character work. I love to disguise myself.
Hal Holbrook
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I walked the streets of New York for two years begging for a job, and I couldn't get one.
Hal Holbrook
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We don't have truth delivered to us very often, especially in this very commercialized world.
Hal Holbrook
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You can go into Mark Twain's material and prove anything you want. He was against war. He was for war. He was against rich people and he was for them. He was a kaleidoscope
Hal Holbrook