David Carradine Quotations

My big fight is not in the movie and I don't understand that decision but I know he's right about it, whatever it is. Quentin did not hire me because I'm a kung fu expert; he hired me because he liked to listen to me talk.

Why would you be afraid of death? It would be an inconvenience. I have a lot of undone things and it's bound to get in the way. But, no, it doesn't scare me at all.

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.

Quentin and I were constantly finding something new that we had in common and comic books were one of them. I think we were talking about comic books much earlier in our relationship, before I had the part.

There's an alternative. There's always a third way, and it's not a combination of the other two ways. It's a different way.

I don't need to convince anybody that I know kung fu, but maybe somebody needs to know that I really can act, without doing a Chinese accent or a funny walk.

You know, I've never actually really believed that death is inevitable. I just think it's a rumor.

I've worked with a lot of real heavy hitters, and Quentin is maybe heads and shoulders, at least a forehead, above just about anybody I've ever worked with.

Quentin wanted to create this special world in which everybody walks around with a samurai sword, extras in the airport, a special little place in the airplane to stick your samurai sword.

In the second installment, I pretty much dominate the show. Somehow or another, though, I manage to apparently dominate the first show pretty well with just my voice and my hands and a shot of my boots kicking cartridges out of the way.

But, Tarantino has seen all of my movies. He's seen my good stuff, he's seen my bad stuff, he's seen the ones I directed, he's read my autobiography. There's an awful lot of things he knows about me, all of which I think had something to do with his casting.

Because you know how you say I've got to really get down and really do some training and then of course, you never do or you do it for a couple of weeks and slough it back off again but I'm being forced to do something that I really want to do and I loved it.

I was involved in a web cartoon of Kung Fu with WB a few years back.

'Born to play? Hmmm. Probably Romeo... or Hamlet, I guess. Also, I'd be a great Alexander the Great.

I studied music formally. I was probably less formal about my study of acting than anything.

I remember when I did the pilot, and I though no network is going to want to do this. How could that happen? A half Chinese guy walking the old west that doesn't fire one gun and never gets on a horse?

Well I would never say to anybody that Warren Beatty got fired, but uh, I think he and Quentin fell out of love, and I think Warren told Quentin to hire me for the film.

I like Bill a lot. As Bill is presented, I mean you don't ever see Bill blow her head off? You know? And I think what Quentin has done is he created a monster.

It was pretty extensive - we worked out 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, which I think is more than anybody in the Olympics. I thought well I don't need this, the girls need it, but it was a gift.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that. I just started doin' it in front of an audience and had to deliver.

Quentin is very organic; there was no way that he was going to put someone else's hand in there and anyway, my hands are kind of famous. It seemed right.

Tarantino is the coolest damn guy; he's just so much fun to work with. He might be the best director I've ever worked with. He just seems to know how to do it and he knows how to make you feel good about it. He's having so much fun you start having fun. You can't help it.

He just understood the true destiny of the movie and what it would do for me. I mean, he's already gotten his Lifetime Achievement Award,

I'm not regretful about dropping acid, but I could have stopped it a little sooner.

Born to play? Hmmm. Probably Romeo... or Hamlet, I guess. Also, I'd be a great Alexander the Great.

There are no good guys in a Quentin Tarantino movie. They're all bad guys. And you like us. That's Quentin's big talent.

I think it may have been Tom Wolfe (if it wasn't, my apologies, Tom, and my apologies to whoever it was) who said in print once, 'David Carradine lives the life that Hunter Thompson only writes about.'

One thing I've noticed is that I can tell when a young actor or a young actress is going to become a huge star. Everybody else will say, "Oh come on, Michelle Pfeiffer, are you kidding?" and I'm pretty much always right about that.

I was enough of an acrobat and a gymnast and a dancer and everything else so that I could handle the kung fu, because it's just choreography.

The success of the '86 movie with Brandon Lee demanded some kind of continuation. Plus, I had always contemplated a modern version.

If you trust yourself, any choice you make will be correct. If you do not trust yourself, anything you do will be wrong. - Kung Fu, The Legend Continues -

Then the part comes to me and it fits like a glove because it's actually written about me, ... All I had to do was show up and learn the lines.

It turned out that this stuff that the Chinese guys do is not really kung fu. It's very different and I did need to learn how to do that.

You've got to be so hip to be into these things, and Quentin is that hip. Nobody I've ever worked with has been that hip to so much of that stuff.