John Wayne Art Quotations

Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity - and I don't mean simple - it'll be good, and the public will know it.

Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.

Westerns are closer to art than anything else in the motion picture business.

Don't ever for a minute make the mistake of looking down your nose at westerns. They're art - the good ones, I mean. They deal in life and sudden death and primitive struggle, and with the basic emotions - love, hate, and anger - thrown in. We'll have westerns films as long as the cameras keep turning. The fascination that the Old West has will never die. And as long as people want to pay money to see me act, I'll keep on making westerns until the day I die.

The West - the very words go straight to that place of the heart where Americans feel the spirit of pride in their western heritage - the triumph of personal courage over any obstacle, whether nature or man.

All men hate to hear "We need to talk about our relationship." These seven words strike fear in the heart of even General Schwartzkopf.

If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.

General MacArthur told me, "You represent the American serviceman better than the American serviceman himself."

Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.