Clint Eastwood Quotes & Sayings

I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that. — Clint Eastwood

To me cinema can be a much more friendly world if there's a lot of things to choose from. — Clint Eastwood

When I look back on my life, I don't have regrets about what I didn't do. If I'd become a musician, it could have ruined my life. — Clint Eastwood

I couldn't tell you exactly what I like about golf. Just when you think you've got it mastered it lets you know you haven't. I'm just crazy enough to do it. — Clint Eastwood

When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it. — Clint Eastwood

Buzzards got to eat, same as the worms. — Clint Eastwood

Every story has its demands. — Clint Eastwood

I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21 because he promised to get us out of the Korean War. — Clint Eastwood

I'm not a chick-flick enthusiast. — Clint Eastwood

There are two kinds of actors
one sits in a dressing room waiting for his call and the other gets out into the business and polishes his craft by absorbing everything. I don't know enough, I'll never learn everything I need to learn. When a guy thinks he's already learned it, he can only go backwards. — Clint Eastwood

Do ya' feel lucky, punk? — Clint Eastwood

I love stories about women. — Clint Eastwood

I don't write. I usually look for material by other people. Sometimes I change things or adapt things but I don't write from scratch. I wish I had that ability. — Clint Eastwood

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous. — Clint Eastwood

Society has made us believe you should look like an 18-year-old model all your life. — Clint Eastwood

I take vitamins daily, but just the bare essentials not what you'd call supplements. I try to stick to a vegan diet heavy on fruit, vegetables, tofu, and other soy products. — Clint Eastwood

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to
self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt,
that's real power. — Clint Eastwood

I always revered people that I thought had an idea and proceeded through with it. I guess I've been that way since the day I called my father and told him I was going to study acting and maybe try to see if I could do well with that, and he told me: "Don't do that. You don't want to do that, that's just dream stuff. Get a legitimate job and move forward." — Clint Eastwood

You know when you're young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they're trying to be old men and they have no idea what that's like? It's just that stupid the other way around. — Clint Eastwood

Every man has got to know his limitations. — Clint Eastwood

I don't like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I'd like to see somebody who's going in the office. In fact, I'd like to not see them because that way you'd be sure that they'd be working. — Clint Eastwood

When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like 'Bird,' I use 90% black people. — Clint Eastwood

I'd like to be a bigger and more knowledgeable person ten years from now than I am today. I think that for all of us as we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open. — Clint Eastwood

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then. — Clint Eastwood

There's nothing like a nice piece of hickory, — Clint Eastwood

The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your fife, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there's nothing really to talk about. — Clint Eastwood

And I think it's that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane. Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that. — Clint Eastwood

'Unforgiven' is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, 'This is great, but I'd like to do this when I'm older.' So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out. — Clint Eastwood

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country. — Clint Eastwood

The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach. — Clint Eastwood

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling. — Clint Eastwood

It's a hell of a thing; killin' a man. You take away everything he ever had and ever would have. — Clint Eastwood

Tomorrow is promised to no one. — Clint Eastwood

I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise. — Clint Eastwood

It's not about you. It's about them. — Clint Eastwood

Nowadays, politically, everybody is promising everything. That's the only way you can get elected. — Clint Eastwood

I tried being reasonable, but I didn't like it. — Clint Eastwood

I'm not one of these guys who sits around saying, 'Gee, I mean, the person had a strange childhood and that's why he's doing this horrible thing. Poor Jeffrey Dahmer. He's just had a bad childhood and that's why he's eating people.' Wait a second! This person should be removed from the planet. — Clint Eastwood

I'm a firm believer in research, but I'm also a firm believer in utilizing the instincts that are within your soul or in your body or in your stomach, wherever they reside. — Clint Eastwood

I don't really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not. — Clint Eastwood

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to. — Clint Eastwood

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive. — Clint Eastwood

When you work with kids, especially, you want to be ready to turn the camera on at a moment's notice. — Clint Eastwood

There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality. — Clint Eastwood

Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it. — Clint Eastwood

You should just evaluate the work and make your judgments accordingly. That's the way you do it in life and every other subject. — Clint Eastwood

That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. — Clint Eastwood

I do believe in the energy and the productivity of the American business world. — Clint Eastwood

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that's always nice. And if they don't like them, then too bad. — Clint Eastwood

Writing is a creative art form and the acting and directing is more of an interpretive art form. — Clint Eastwood

There's a lot of young guys coming along, but I'd like to say to the various financiers, don't forget the senior guys. The senior guys and gals are there, willing to do their best work for you. — Clint Eastwood

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are ... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character. — Clint Eastwood

I'm not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I've always liked the Buddhist religion. When I've been to Japan, I've been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding. — Clint Eastwood

I have a small child. Being a parent takes a lot of time. People always ask me, "What movies have you watched lately?" I tell them, "Finding 'Nemo' ... 'Shrek' ... — Clint Eastwood

People love westerns worldwide. There's something fantasy-like about an individual fighting the elements. Or even bad guys and the elements. It's a simpler time. There's no organized laws and stuff. — Clint Eastwood

I guess maybe when you get past 70, other people start asking you how you feel. — Clint Eastwood

That's the secret to a movie career - just keeping an open mind. — Clint Eastwood

The more time you have to think things through, the more you have to screw it up. — Clint Eastwood

Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant. — Clint Eastwood

I haven't been very active in politics. — Clint Eastwood

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it. — Clint Eastwood

Don Siegel last advice to me was 'Don't short yourself.' He said the tendency is when an actor's directing is to kind of you want to work on everybody else but you're going to short yourself. He said, take the time to do a good job with yourself so that you're satisfied with it. — Clint Eastwood

When you listen to Ray Charles, there's never any doubt whose voice that is. — Clint Eastwood

When you're young, you're very reckless. Then you get conservative. Then you get reckless again. — Clint Eastwood

I've had moments when I've thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there's some vibration, some connection. — Clint Eastwood

Deserve's got nothin' to do with it. — Clint Eastwood

Plagiarism is always the biggest thing in Hollywood. — Clint Eastwood

As you get older, you're not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn't running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing. — Clint Eastwood

Acting gets into your blood, after so many years, and I just always like revisiting it. It's fun to meet new people and watch them coming along, at different stages of their careers. — Clint Eastwood

I don't believe in pessimism. — Clint Eastwood

It must be the Brit in me, because I like animals. — Clint Eastwood

I played a little basketball. Some football in junior high. — Clint Eastwood

The casting is the most important thing. If you cast a picture really well a lot of things take care of themselves. You get actors that like to give a lot to the role and who appreciate the role on the same level that you do. If you miscast it, you're working an uphill battle a little bit and maybe you can come out okay but you can't always come out great. — Clint Eastwood

The U.S. military was segregated 'til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated. — Clint Eastwood

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn't done in life. They wish they hadn't kicked their dog when they were ten or something. — Clint Eastwood

Go ahead, make my day. — Clint Eastwood

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing. — Clint Eastwood

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don't have a toy, they'll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time. — Clint Eastwood

The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits. — Clint Eastwood

At the major studios, you see people wanting to remake a TV series, wanting to make a sequel. — Clint Eastwood

I just feel that I enjoy the work more than I ever have ... or just as much certainly. I enjoy making films behind the camera equally to making them in front of the camera on all those years. I just enjoy it, that's all. I've been lucky enough to work in a profession that I have really liked and so I figured I'd just continue until someone hits me over the head and says "get out". — Clint Eastwood

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove - disapprove of their point of view. — Clint Eastwood

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer. — Clint Eastwood

Comedy isn't necessarily all dialogue. Think of Buster Keaton: the poker face and all this chaos going on all around him. Sometimes it's a question of timing, of the proper rhythm. — Clint Eastwood

People have lost their sense of humor. In former times, we constantly made jokes about different races. — Clint Eastwood

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less. — Clint Eastwood

Hollywood seems to succumb to fads. Well, action films do well. Give me violence. Give me a scene where there's a couple of car chases or shooting and stuff like that. They're forgetting the fact that there's a basic structure to a story that is essential to making it really broad and appealing. — Clint Eastwood

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands. — Clint Eastwood

There are certain age limits on police officers. They'd have retired me out at 65. — Clint Eastwood

You know I've had people come up and ask me to sign their guns. Sign my name on gun handles and holsters and stuff. I've done it once or twice for law enforcement officials, but when people do that
and there have been quite a few of them lately
I always tell them no. I don't want to do that. I don't want my name on that and I hope you use this gun, whatever its purpose is, I hope it's used wisely. — Clint Eastwood

I would like to be interpreted as a liberal libertarian, like leave everybody alone and let them do their own thing. — Clint Eastwood

I love big business! — Clint Eastwood

Hollywood, as everyone knows, glamorizes physical courage ... if I had to define courage myself, I wouldn't say it's about shooting people. I'd say it's the quality that stimulates people, that enables them to move ahead and look beyond themselves. — Clint Eastwood

Over my career I played some badass characters. So, people sometimes think I should have a .44 magnum. But that's not true, I don't have that. But I do fire them and I do enjoy target shooting and all that sort of thing. I'm not much of a hunter. I don't like killing animals, but I love to shoot. — Clint Eastwood

I have worked ever since I was 13. — Clint Eastwood

Now you've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? - Inspector Harry Callahan — Clint Eastwood

In 'Gran Torino,' I play a guy who's racially offensive. But he learned. It shows that you're never too old to learn and embrace people that you don't understand to begin with. It seems like nobody else got that message, I guess. — Clint Eastwood

Listen, punk. To me you're nothin' but dogshit, you understand? And a lot of things can happen to dogshit. It can be scraped up with a shovel off the ground. It can dry up and blow away in the wind. Or it can be stepped on and squashed. So take my advice and be careful where the dog shits ya! — Clint Eastwood

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel. — Clint Eastwood

Take your work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously — Clint Eastwood