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I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.

Theodore Bikel

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Theodore Bikel
Age: 91 †
Born: 1924
Born: May 2
Died: 2015
Died: July 21
Actor
Businessperson
Film Actor
Musician
Politician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Trade Unionist
Vienna
Austria
Theodore Meir Bikel
Universalist
Jew
Convinced
Remain
True
Better

More quotes by Theodore Bikel

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Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.
Theodore Bikel
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It's a sad thing to contemplate, but I'm the last surviving cast member of 'The African Queen.'
Theodore Bikel
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I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.
Theodore Bikel
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Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.
Theodore Bikel
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If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
Theodore Bikel
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I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.
Theodore Bikel
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Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?
Theodore Bikel
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You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
Theodore Bikel
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Every actor wants to direct and produce, but I made a conscious decision when I was in college to understand the 'business' of 'show business.'
Theodore Bikel
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You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
Theodore Bikel
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But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
Theodore Bikel
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Audiences are audiences.
Theodore Bikel
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I glory in the fact that a human being has multiple talents and exercises them all with a degree of integrity and artistic proficiency. That's what I do.
Theodore Bikel
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As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
Theodore Bikel
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John Huston was the kind of director that totally left you alone. Not every actor always does it right, every time, but most of the time he was re-directing someone. He was making tight adjustments, and not even in terms of interpretation because he knew that by the time that the character had been filmed... well, he got it right when he cast you.
Theodore Bikel
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On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
Theodore Bikel
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I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.
Theodore Bikel
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I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
Theodore Bikel
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But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.
Theodore Bikel
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Retiring' - within that word is 'tiring,' and I'm not tired. I don't believe in retirement, really.
Theodore Bikel