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Alan Arkin Biography

Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director and screenwriter. With a film career spanning six decades, Arkin is known for his performances in Popi; Wait Until Dark; The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming; The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Catch-22; The In-Laws; Edward Scissorhands; Get Smart; Glengarry Glen Ross; Thirteen Conversations About One Thing; Little Miss Sunshine; and Argo.

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Alan Arkin Quotes

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

Analyze, Eight, Moving, People, Performance

I gotta keep busy. I'm not happy unless I'm working on two, three things.

Busy, Happy, Three, Two, Unless

Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.

Endless, Fall, Risk, Things, Think, Thinking

Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.

Actors, Arbitrary, Connect, Way, Winning

If I'm going to make a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit.

Fake, Hit, Ifs, Make, Movie

No matter what you do or where you are, you're going to be missing out on something.

Matter, Missing, Where You Are

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.

Explore, Identity, Labels, Learning, Limits, Opportunity

Two-thirds of American movies are extensions of commercials -- they tell you how to feel and they tell you how to think -- rather than letting you figure it out on your own.

American, Figure, Figures, Think, Thinking, Two

I had a hard time treating my field as if it's horse racing, putting actors in competition against each other. I see how the industry and the studios feel it's important, but I don't really have a feeling for being in competition. I want to feel sympathetic and close to others, not opposed to them.

Close, Competition, Hard Times, Horse, Studios

It's murder to doubt yourself in life. It took until I was 45 to get to that point. As hard as it is in your work, it's harder in your life. But it can be done.

Done, Doubt, Hard, Harder, Murder

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.

Acting, Back, Playing, Together, Trying

Either you're growing or you're decaying; there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.

Decaying, Ground, Growing, Middle, Standing Still

I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.

Couple, Groups, Guitar, Living, Managed

You can begin to see an amalgamation of cultures, the real beginning of one world. Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music. I wonder if people have even noticed what a tremendous cultural signal the Beatles are.

Music, People, Real, Style, World, Years

Hollywood is a strange place. The class structure here is more rigid than almost anyplace I've ever experienced. It's made more difficult by the fact that it's constantly changing. You never know what class you belong to unless you're one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time.

Class, Difficult, Long, Same, Strange Places, Two

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.

Annoys, Earned, Hell, People, Sometimes, Want

Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.

Absolute, Absolutes, Truth, Unfolding

But one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century came out of people dropping things.

Discoveries, Discovery, Improvising, Life, Life Is, People

I don't believe there's anything in life you can't go back and fix. The ancient Vedas - the oldest Hindu philosophy - and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that's true, there's no such thing as a past or a future - it's all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future.

Believe, Future, Hindu, Past, Philosophy, Vedas

I don't live in L. A. on purpose because I don't wanna be immersed in that. I have to have a real life, with real people, in order to inform what I'm doing; otherwise, it just becomes the snake eating its own tail. Vampirism.

Live, Order, People, Real, Snakes

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