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I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.

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
Traditions
Prefer
Tradition
Choose
Keep

More quotes by Theodore Bikel

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You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
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Retiring' - within that word is 'tiring,' and I'm not tired. I don't believe in retirement, really.
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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.
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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.
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In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.
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.
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The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before.
Theodore Bikel
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After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.
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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An actor is supposed to emulate life. Instead, alas, many are imitating other actors. You don't fashion your knowledge of theatre or your approach to a role on the basis of what other actors have done. This kind of thinking is a great danger, especially in dealing with TV producers who frequently say things like, 'This is a Sean Connery type.'
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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Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.
Theodore Bikel
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Audiences are audiences.
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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In my world, history comes down to language and art.
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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What moves me is neither ethnocentric pride nor sectarian arrogance. I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures. But it is mine.
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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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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I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.
Theodore Bikel