Steve Guttenberg Quotations

I'm not bragging but my movies have grossed well over a billion dollars.

I love the fame and the money and the power. You have to keep working to have that.

A career is a series of ups and downs, of comebacks.

If you're an underdog, mentally disabled, physically disabled, if you don't fit in, if you're not as pretty as the others, you can still be a hero.

In Utah, there are no bad things in the water there. It's just smooth, really beautiful.

The allure of Hollywood is huge when you don't know anything. You don't know the knives behind the smiles.

It's good Xerox is known for its copying machines, and it's good Jim Carrey is known for comedy.

I'm lucky to be in this business. I'm very grateful.

When people are nasty, it gets everybody's attention, and it gives them a name.

No matter how bad your life gets, you can always turn it around.

Everyone keeps asking me, What are you doing? I say, Why do I need to do anything? I'm rich.

A gay man can be friends with a straight man. That can happen.

For 15 years I did two to three movies a year, sometimes four. I didn't get to spend time building my personal life.

I'm not going to say, I'm an actor and I'm changing the world. Who cares?

Underneath all the skin, we're all the same.

Unless you're Jack Lemmon or Cary Grant, there are few guys who can do comedy and drama.

You never know who's going to become your friend. Friends are always chance meetings.

If you put down a list of jobs, doctor, lawyer, janitor, teacher or movie star, everybody would pick the movie star. And why? So you could lie around the pool, drink margaritas and send money to your parents. So that's what I did.

I'm somebody who deserves to be supported and encouraged to continue my work because I have a lot to give.

I've only had good experiences with actors. Starring next to them and directing them, for the most part they're all inspiring, special people.

Every film can be fun, even if it's a terror.

From 1980 to 1990, I shot more films than any other actor in the Screen Actors Guild, apart from Gene Hackman.

I'm somebody who's really contributed to culture. Popular culture.

I'm sure if you dig deep, Joe and Ralph Fiennes do it because they want to be noticed.

I've made a lot of people a lot of money, and I've made a lot of people really happy. I've entertained millions and millions of people.

My uncle had trouble carving the turkey. He complained about the sharpness of the knife. My grandma proceeded to rip the turkey apart with her own hands and throw a leg and breast on everyone's plate and said, 'There, that's Brooklyn style.'

Whenever I would see them they were always a happy couple. They always had the appearance of being real well balanced.

There are 100,000 actors in the Screen Actors Guild. Only 2,000 of them make more than $75,000 a year.

You're never really playing yourself. You're always acting. It's an illusion that you're really playing yourself. The only time I'm playing myself is when I'm at home!

When you have nothing to lose, the sky's the limit.

It's important for everybody to have somewhere to go. Men and women need purpose [in life].

My thoughts were to become a dentist when I first went to Albany State. I didn't know where I would end up, but I knew I'd be happy, and I knew I would have a nice life. That was always my goal, to have a nice, happy life. That's, to me, being rich.

There's tons of waste on every film. It really doesn't matter the budget, as long as it hits a bull's-eye.

In show business, you can't make a living. You can only make a fortune, but you can't make a living.

Wanting to work is a luxury; having to work is not. If you're an artist, an actor, and you don't have to work, then you do work that you wanna do.

I don't believe in having to show anybody anything. I just do my work. You know, making a living as an actor is such a rarity on earth. It's like making a living as a painter. So I look at different opportunities in the same way as Jack Nicholson, who said once, "Keep popping up in different holes. That's what you want to do: Just keep popping up in different holes." That made a lot of sense to me.

Wanting to work is a luxury; having to work is not.

Someone's just told me the English are still trying to take over the United States - is that true?

It's all about commerce. Movies are not made like paintings, where you can make them for free and put them at the side. Movies are supposed to make money.

Show business has never been my everything. It's a means; it's not the end. It's a means to the end. I want and have always wanted freedom. That was always my goal, to not have a boss, to not have anybody tell me what to do. Luckily, as an actor, I got that.

There are 100,000 actors in the Screen Actors Guild. Only 2,000 of them make more than $75,000 a year.

I turned down Short Circuit 2 too and I now wish I hadn't. Sequels are a lot of fun and you get to hang out with all your friends.

I've always been proud of my character and how I live my life. So my regrets are few, and the ones I do have, I'm glad I have.

When you're starting out as an actor, there isn't much food around. I was lucky to have a hit pretty early on. I didn't starve too long.

Directing is a tremendous art.

You can tell when you're in a hit.

Sometimes it's good to miss a bus. It might be the wrong bus.

When you're going over periods of your life, you remember certain things, certain events, certain people that you've forgotten. You've forgotten certain lessons or people you were very close to, and then you haven't seen them in a while. I think if you can go through life with the correct regrets, then looking back on it, like I did, a certain portion of my life is pretty enjoyable. All my regrets are ones that I'd like to keep.

Making art is an act of courage. Do you know who said that?

What life really is all about is happiness. It's not money, or stature, or the amount of cars you have in your driveway. Life, a really successful life, is one in which you are loved and love somebody else, or some other people.

It is hard to look back and talk about a set of disjointed experiences as though they were part of one smooth progression.

Let's look at people as artists and try to support them; just because Picasso painted a couple of bad paintings, that's no reason to say he's a lousy painter.

Any kind of writing that's meaningful becomes hard work, so there were times when it would really flow, there were times when I'd get 10 pages a day, and then there were days when I would do three pages. Depends on the thickness of the material. If it's satisfying, it's hard, but it's pretty wonderful.

Typecasting is a good thing. It's good to be known for what you do.