Paul Newman Quotations

Newman's second law: Just when things look darkest, they go black.

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

Newman's first law: It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down.

If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.

So you wound up with Apollo. If he's sometimes hard to swallow. Use this.

You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: 'Holy Christ, whaddya know - I'm still around!' It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.

Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.

People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.

To be an actor you have to be a child.

The star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars.

We ran (an unofficial track record) 52.4 when we tested here a month or so ago,

Let's say this was a release of a gas and it migrated through the neighborhood. You want to know what that was as quickly as possible, and certainly 24 hours later that emission is long gone.

She was vibrant. She was stylish. She was tough. She was caring, and she will be sorely missed.

McDonald's new Asian Salad plus Newman's Own low fat Sesame Ginger salad dressing is a marriage of taste - just like mine.

From a human perspective, it's a little dismaying because this means there's still going to be higher levels of UV.

He was treated for bruised ribs on the upper left side of his chest. I got overconfident on a fresh set of tires. The tires weren't warm enough and I slipped.

We lost the gearbox and I started sliding around out there. I was having a good time up until that point.

Three of us walked over there; I just carried the stuff back, ... They are getting along so they need all the help they can get.

Costa Rica is a marvelous place to enter the atmosphere.

Each town has its own allure and it has its own character. This race would be different from Long Beach, it would be different from Edmonton, and you guys will put your own signature on it. It's a reciprocal trade agreement. Champ Car gets a great race, and you get a great three-day festival, so everybody wins,

Racing here for me is muscle memory. Running at the limit is just kind of average. You are always trying to go as fast as you can go. If you can do it one lap, the next lap can be just as easy until you get tired.

Backstage they think the only reason he's even in the vicinity was because they told him this whole thing was yesterday.

It's about five percent larger than what we saw back in 1996.

Skin cancer rates will go up. Sunburns will occur at a faster rate, degradation of plastics and so forth, because of enhanced ultraviolet radiation from a lowering of ozone.

I think my most memorable win was in 1979 when I won the SCCA National Championship at a race down in Atlanta, ... That was a very good race against tough competition.

I just try to get through the day.

I picture my epitaph: ""Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown"".

Generally, the ozone hole remains close to the (South) Pole, so for human populations, we have to keep an eye on it, and we have to be a bit worried about it, but we don't have to jump to extremes here.

I certainly never expected to be a professional actor. I never expected to be in movies. I thought I would probably become a teacher.

Watching something is nothing like doing it.

You say somebody’s guilty, everybody believes you. You say they’re innocent, nobody cares.

I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me.

Well, the nice thing about animation, you don't even really have to account for yourself. All of the physical stuff that you work on as an actor, you just throw away.

I just hope when my body goes, or when my mind does, I have the guts to end it the way Hemingway did. I don't want anybody wiping drool off my chin.

I'm a very competitive person. I always have been. And it's hard to be competitive about something as amorphous as acting. But you can be competitive on the track, because the rules are very simple and the declaration of the winner is very concise.

I have an extraordinary attention span. I manage to juggle two or three different ideas at the same time, and that's probably, if I have a gift, that's probably the best gift that's given me.

There are a lot of drivers who can carry a car. It doesn't happen very often very successfully. I think it takes a certain amount of sensible bravery. It's no good to be brave and just keep crashing.

I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.

I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's no sense even trying to explain it. I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts, so I don't look at anything.

Well, I'm not able to work anymore as an actor and still at the level I would want to ... you start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So, that's pretty much a closed book for me. And I'm grateful for the other things that have come into my life: grandkids, and restaurants and charity ... I've been doing it for 50 years. That's enough.

I had no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.

Being on President Nixon's enemies list was the highest single honor I've ever received. Who knows who's listening to me now and what government list I'm on?

The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play — characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.

I think Hollywood is in love with sequels. If it's successful once, just jazz it up and shoot it out there again. I think it's unfortunate.

Sweet Bird of Youth”: “The big difference between people is not between the rich and the poor, the good and the evil. The biggest of all differences between people is between those who have had pleasure in love and those who haven't.

So you wound up with Apollo/If he's sometimes hard to swallow/Use this.

There are three rules for running a business; fortunately, we don't know any of them.

I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.

Fill the moment and find variety.

It happens to everybody, horses, dogs, men. Nobody gets out of life alive.

We all die. It's just a question of when.

I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

It wasn't as though I really made a commitment to it; there wasn't anything else around. So I wasn't driven to become an actor.. it just seemed to be the thing that I managed to do best.

When the idea came up, (Newman's Own) I said, "Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?" And then, of course, we got the whole idea of exploitation and how circular it is. Why not, really, go to the fullest length, and the silliest length, in exploiting yourself and turn the proceeds back to the community?

Where the hell are the singing cats?

You can't really appreciate anonymity until you've lost it. People say that's sour grapes, but it really isn't To be able to walk down the street without people paying attention to you is a real blessing and you lose it when you become an actor.

I was terrorized by the emotional requirements of being an actor. Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.

I started my career giving a clinic in bad acting in the film, "The Silver Chalice," and now I'm playing a crusty old man who's an animated automobile [in "Cars"]. That's a creative arc for you, isn't it?

I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts.

I will continue to get behind the wheel of a racing car as long as I am able. But that could all end tomorrow.

The characters I have the least in common with are the ones I have the greatest success with. The further a role is from my own experience, the more I try to deepen it.

I'd done some acting in high school. Then I went to Kenyon College and got thrown in jail and kicked off the football team. Since I was determined not to study very much, I majored in theater the last two years. Got my degree in speech; they didn't actually have a degree in theater. I graduated at two o'clock in the afternoon, and at three-thirty I was on the train for Williams Bay, Wisconsin, for summer stock, and then I did winter stock.

In the early days of films, the movie star in this country replaced royalty. They've been demoted since then but they're still treated as beings larger than life.

It seems to me that the older I get, the more running around I do with less satisfaction, just spinning my wheels.

It's born of sheer laziness. My signature dishes are salads, hamburgers and popcorn. That's not the kind of stuff that gets you an entry in the distinguished book of culinary records. Being known for great soufflé is one thing but a good hamburger? What would they say? "Yeah, he really knew how to put the cheese on."

Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.

The only way we can give our children the best education in the world and prepare them for the next century is by funding the programs that serve them.

The spaghetti sauce is a good thing to think about. Morning, noon, and night, think about the spaghetti sauce. Think about hustling other people to buy the spaghetti sauce.

There are many ingredients that go into making a film. It baffles me, what works and what doesn't.

You can't stop being a citizen just because you have a Screen Actors' Guild card.

You discover a lot of things on your feet and if you don't have any rehearsal, then anything that happens on the screen is by accident.

I have taken roads that I wished I had not traveled on. And I'm traveling on some pretty exciting ones, too. Just hope when you get to that great racetrack in the sky, that the balance will tip slightly into those things that you'd be proud of.

Almost everything I learned about being an actor came from those early years at the Actor's Studio.

You got to have two things to win. You got to have brains and you got to have balls. Now you've got too much of one and not enough of the other.

A man without enemies is a man without character.

If you have no enemies, you have no character.

[Getting the truth in the New York Post has been as] difficult as finding a good hamburger in Albania.

I changed my life today. What did you do?

How many honest men do you know? Take the sinners away from the saints, you're lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln.

For some players, luck itself is an art

Admit it. I'm the best you ever seen, Fats. I'm the best there is. And even if you beat me, I'm still the best.

If I ever feel like I’m doing something I’ve done before, I scrap it and start over again.

I can eat fifty eggs.

I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.

The only question I ever ask any woman is, 'what time is your husband coming home?'

No sense in being a grifter if it's the same as being a citizen.

I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary.

So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

Natural law. Sons are put on this earth to trouble their fathers.

I wish I could recall with clarity the impulse that compelled me to help bring this camp into being. I'd be pleased if I could announce a motive of lofty purpose. I've been accused of compassion, of altruism, of devotion to Christian, Hebrew, and Muslim ethic, but however desperate I am to claim ownership of a high ideal, I cannot. I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck; the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.

It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm tired.' [After winning his first Oscar after so many losses]

I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.

The accusation is always on the first page, and the retraction on page 19.

People like to do what they used to do after they've stopped being able to do it.

A feud should live a full and colorful life, and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.