Quote

My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was free.

Kirk Douglas

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Kirk Douglas
Age: 103 †
Born: 1916
Born: December 9
Died: 2020
Died: February 5
Actor
Author
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Soldier
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Amsterdam (city)
New York
Issur Danielovitch
Izzy Demsky
Isador Demsky
Issur Danielovich
Book
Building
Cinema
Take
Child
Library
Children
Reading
Russia
Illiteracy
Believe
Knowledge
Access
Illiterate
Free
Constantly
Librarian
Father
Subject
Literacy
Mother
Subjects
Amazed
America
Couldn
Immigrants

More quotes by Kirk Douglas

Image
When you get to my age, you find that most of your dear friends are gone.
Kirk Douglas
Image
I never wanted to be in movies. In a sense, I'm still a failure because I wanted to be a star on the stage.
Kirk Douglas
Image
I know Italians and I like them. A lot of my father's best friends were Italians.
Kirk Douglas
Image
I went to Hollywood to test for Martha Ivers and I thought I was going to play the part that Van Heflin played.But they wanted me to play the part of Barbara Stanwyck's husband, so I played that. Then when I finished the movie, I went back to Broadway and did another flop.
Kirk Douglas
Image
A stroke is a very difficult thing. You get depressed. . . . What I found was this: the cure for depression is to think of others, to do for others. You can always find something to be grateful for.
Kirk Douglas
Image
When you reach 95, after you get over your surprise, you start looking back.
Kirk Douglas
Image
I remember little things that break my heart. We were coming out of Michael's house one day, and he noticed my shoelaces were undone. He bent down and tied them. I almost cried. To me, it was such a gesture of love.
Kirk Douglas
Image
My mother, we were a very poor family. When I was a kid, we would be in our little room, and there would be a knock on the door almost every night with a hobo begging for food. Even though we didn't even have enough to eat, my mother always found something to give them.
Kirk Douglas
Image
On a crowded bus in Israel, a mother was speaking to her son in Yiddish. An Israeli woman reprimanded her. You should be speaking Hebrew. Why are you talking to him in Yiddish? The mother answered, I don't want he should forget he's a Jew.
Kirk Douglas
Image
I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.
Kirk Douglas
Image
You'll never see Spartacus in a (expletive) chair!
Kirk Douglas
Image
I think that [Barack] Obama was elected because young people are starting to get interested in their country and I think that's a very healthy thing.
Kirk Douglas
Image
I bought the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I paid to have it made into a play and I played in it for six months. I came back and I tried to make it into a movie, without success.
Kirk Douglas
Image
Virtue is not photogenic.
Kirk Douglas
Image
The learning process continues until the day you die.
Kirk Douglas
Image
Maybe there is no peace in this world. I don't know ... But I know as long as we live we must stay true to ourselves.
Kirk Douglas
Image
The best wine comes from home, wherever it is.
Kirk Douglas
Image
Fame is as much about luck as it is about talent, perhaps more.
Kirk Douglas
Image
What would my parents think about America if they arrived here today? Would they even want to come? I wonder.
Kirk Douglas
Image
The only advantage I have found in being Jewish is that I can be openly anti-Semitic.
Kirk Douglas