Harry Dean Stanton
I'm not really into religion.Collection: Religion
My father and mother were not that compatible. I don't think they had a good wedding night, and I was the product of that. We weren't close.Collection: Wedding
I was the classic killer. I always played an angry man. I think it was because I used to really be like that - I was hostile. And because I had a good sense of theatrical truth, I used my anger and rebelliousness and just went with it. Anger was just a part of me.Collection: Anger
I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.Collection: Birthday
The void, the concept of nothingness, is terrifying to most people on the planet. And I get anxiety attacks myself. I know the fear of that void. You have to learn to die before you die. You give up, surrender to the void, to nothingness.Collection: Fear
You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.Collection: Wisdom
You want people to feel something when you tell a story, whether they feel happy or whether they feel sad.Collection: Sad
I was in World War Two at the battle of Okinawa.Collection: War
People know you as an actor, and labels are so comfortable for people. That syndrome is always hard to get past.
I can understand why it takes some people a long time to really be a singer. You have to find out, 'Why am I singing? What am I doing this for?' I do it because I enjoy it, and philosophically, music is a catalyst. It's a refining agent.
If I never did another film after 'Paris, Texas,' I'd be happy.
I would've preferred to blossom earlier in life.
I think every actor wants to play those big parts. In the very first play I ever did, I remember understanding all the characters in it. I always felt I could play anyone.
All organized religions are basically the same.
I grew up Southern Baptist. In the Bible Belt.
I am not into any religions. I have been mostly influenced by Eastern religions - Taoism, the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism. But my belief is not having any beliefs.
I am an actor and this is holding the mirror up to nature, as it were.
I've had offers that could've made me much richer and much more famous than I am.
I've passed up opportunities. I've avoided the spotlight. I've never been to Academy Awards, didn't relate to them.
Silence is the most powerful state.
Sam Shepard is a brilliant writer.
I made it a point not to graduate. I thought that was a positive, independent kind of statement.
I never liked being ordered around - which, of course, was an overreaction. I eventually found out that I didn't mind being ordered around at all when it was by someone who knew what he was doing.
I don't blame anyone but myself for the kind of parts I got. To blame external circumstances is absolute folly.
I hated being typecast in those roles. It was personally limiting, only playing stereotyped heavies. But I got those roles because I was angry, because that's what I projected. I was angry at my mother and father because they didn't get along, angry at the church. On top of that, I had an extreme lack of self-confidence.
'Paris, Texas' gave me a chance to play compassion, and I'm spelling that with a capital C.
I worked with the best directors - Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.
I always had a dramatic flair. I'd like to dress up like a cowboy, play make-believe. But I didn't realize acting was something I had to do until I got to college.
The soul is an illusion.
I used to sing when I was six years old. When the family would leave the house, I'd get up on the stool and sing. 'T for Texas, T for Tenessee, T for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me.' I was in love with my babysitter. She was 18. I was six.
I've had chances to record albums, which I haven't done.
My favorite films are 'Paris, Texas' and 'Repo Man.'
Nothing is important.
Every actor is a character actor.
Singing and acting are actually very similar things. Anyone can sing and anyone can be a film actor. All you have to do is learn.
I was singing the blues when I was six. Kind of sad, eh?
I could have made it as a singer, but I went with acting - surrendered to it, in a way.
I've worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.
You can do stuff onstage that you can't do offstage. You can be angry as hell and enraged and get away with it onstage, but not off.
When man began to think he was a separate person with a separate soul, it created a violent situation.
A friend is somebody who doesn't lie.
What did we play in the Harry Dean Stanton Band? It was old blues and country - all covers. I never wrote anything.
The first film I ever remember - I think my mother took me to it - was called 'She Married Her Boss' with Melvyn Douglas.
I was trained on the stage, and I can do stage as well as I can do movies, but I prefer films.
I have nothing to do with anything that happens to me.
I had opportunities to be a lot more successful, but for some reason or other - the way I was particularly genetically wired - I turned down a lot of opportunities.
I could have been a lot more famous and played leading men and everything. For whatever reason, I didn't go for it.
Molly Ringwald, she's a natural talent. Every girl in this country related to that girl.
I was in the Pacific. The Pacific Theater, as they say.
I sang barber shop harmony and sort of got into performing. And it just came naturally. Then, when I was in college after the war, I did a play, 'Pygmalion,' by George Bernard Shaw. And from then on, I knew that's what I wanted to do.