Ed Asner Quotations

I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.

They say making laws is like making sausages. You shouldn't watch. It's the same for acting, especially for the actor who works unconsciously.

I don't believe in God, though I'm not prepared to call myself an atheist either. You know the old phrase: 'There are no atheists in foxholes.' I've never been in a foxhole, and if I ever find myself in a foxhole, I'll let you know if I believe in God or not.

The older I've gotten, the more the need to exert comedy no matter how tragic a character I may be portraying because they are essentials for presenting truth.

Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.

Where the work goes, I go. Wherever adulation occurs, that's where you'll find me.

I went into acting as psychotherapy, and it's still a work in progress.

I don't know who made the Earth. I woke up one morning, and it's here. I make the best of it.

In a way, 'WALL-E' had some of the same disturbing elements that 'Up' does.

I've never stopped loving cartoons. I loved cartoons as a kid. I can still look at them and enjoy them.

Some of my earliest political feelings were based on the anti-Japanese bubblegum cards I got. There were also Spanish Civil War bubblegum cards. Awful.

It's like an athlete. He has a string of hot years, and then he fades into nothingness. The actor doesn't necessarily fade into nothingness. After his hot years, he fades into a different category.

I am not a method actor, though I studied for a year with Lee Strasburg.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.

To my knowledge, there is no blacklist. But there is a mindset, even among liberal producers, that says 'He may be difficult so let's avoid him.'

Never thought acting was something you could make a living at. It wasn't until I was in college, and got a lead in a play, that I began to realize I might just be able to blunder into this profession.

Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get.

I can do lovers. I can do Sir Galahad types. I'm not going to limit myself in voice-overs to irascible old men.

I got some news for you. One, there is no Jesus. Two, there is no God. Three, mind your own business and everything works out.

I loved getting to Chagrin Falls, being by the falls; what a cute place it is.

I was a newspaper editor in high school, and I truly thought of journalism as a career. I loved it.

I'm not sought after. I never get enough work. It's the history of my career. There just isn't anything to turn down, let me put it that way.

If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets.

There's never been a time in history, no matter what the public thinks, when actors have been paid more than they should be.

You don't work with Cloris Leachman, you experience her.

My first job was with an auto plant, Kansas City - they treated you like slaves. From there I went back to Chicago, worked in steel mills, drove a cab, stuff like that.

I also think that there is a strong streak of racism, and whenever we engage in foreign adventures. Our whole history in regime change has been of people of different color.

The treasure shouldn't do the hunting, and you're a treasure.

I loved journalism until the day my journalism teacher, a man I revered, came by my desk and said, 'Are you planning on going into journalism?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'I wouldn't.' I said, 'Well, why not?' He said, 'You can't make a living.'

I will always have enough money to last the rest of my life...as long as I don't buy anything.

(on making the transition from the comedy "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) to its dramatic spin-off series "Lou Grant" (1977) We were really worried about changing over from a three-camera half-hour comedy to a one-camera full-hour drama. The audience wasn't ready for the switch - even CBS billed us in their promos as a comedy. In fact, the whole thing was impossible. But we didn't know that.

The free access to information is not a privilege, but a necessity for any free society. One of my favorite things to do as a young man was wander through the stacks of my hometown library. I'd just browse until I found something interesting. Libraries have definitely changed my life.

As they used to say 'What if they gave a war and nobody came?' How worthwhile if they declared a day of peace and everybody came.

We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life through the destruction of our ecology, and yet every one of us, in our own little comfortable ways, contributes daily to that destruction. It's time now to awaken in each one of us the respect and attention our beloved Mother deserves.

All capitalists should be like Warren Buffett, and he says he should be taxed more.

There are genuinely sufficient resources in the world to ensure that no one, nowhere, at no time, should go hungry.

A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama.

When I was working my way up, it seemed to me that only Westerns and 'Star Treks' or sci-fi movies could afford to get away with presenting the problems - like prejudice and desegregation, for instance - that we face in our everyday lives.

To tell you the truth, I hadn't seen any Pixar until I went to see 'Wall-E,' and I watched it and I was shocked to see how adult it was, with the setting in our lives, both present and future, and how they dealt with it... And then quite relieved to find that the one I was working on, 'Up,' how adult it was.

yet the ratings kept going down. We finally figured it out; people don't dislike John, they're just tired of bad news. When they flip on the TV, they want to get AWAY from their problems, not hear about people getting thrown overboard tied to their boat anchor or working out so they can strangle innocent kids faster and better.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare.

Anything you see on the cover of magazines at the grocery store checkout line is fair game for our NEW news format. Including aliens.

Almost every position he took in his life I was highly supportive of. He was a hero in many respects.

They're sheep. They like Bush enough to credit him with saving the nation after 9/11. Three thousand people get killed, and everybody thinks they're next on the list. The president comes along, and he's got his six-guns strapped on, and people think he's going to save them.

I pray that this council, which will probably be too late to save Iraq, will do what it can, which will be immeasurably strong in what it does in trying to save our democracy.

I come up here to get away from the sun,

You could call 'show biz,' filmmaking, the original arena for outsourcing because ever since I've been making movies, Hollywood has been threatened with outsourcing, be it Italy, be it Australia, New Zealand, and certainly, Canada.

The interns recommended a new, Survivor format for news anchors. Every week viewers can vote to banish a news reporter off to 60 Minutes, 48 hours, or some other pseudo-news program. The one who's left will be our new anchor.