Dennis Hopper Quotes & Sayings

You want to hear about insanity? I was found running naked through the jungles in Mexico. At the Mexico City airport, I decided I was in the middle of a movie and walked out on the wing on takeoff. My body ... my liver ... okay, my brain ... went. — Dennis Hopper

I was very shy, and it was a lot easier for me to communicate if I had a camera between me and other people. — Dennis Hopper

I was a Shakespearean actor, I had preconceived ideas, line readings - everything was a gesture, everything was conscious. — Dennis Hopper

I've been sober now for 18 years. With all the drugs, psychedelics and narcotics I did, I was [really] an alcoholic. Honestly, I only used to do cocaine so I could sober up and drink more. My last five years of drinking was a nightmare. I was drinking a half-gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, in case I ran out, 28 beers a day, and three grams of cocaine just to keep me moving around. And I thought I was doing fine because I wasn't crawling around drunk on the floor. — Dennis Hopper

Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you either love somebody or you hate them. — Dennis Hopper

I should have been dead ten times over. I've thought about that a lot. I believe in miracles. It's an absolute miracle that I'm still around. — Dennis Hopper

My whole written history is one big lie! I mean, I can't even believe my history. — Dennis Hopper

You know, the history of California art doesn't start until about 1961, and that's when these photographs start. I mean, we have no history out here. — Dennis Hopper

Work is fun to me. All those years of being an actor and a director and not being able to get a job - two weeks is too long to not know what my next job will be. — Dennis Hopper

Well, it's not just money. I consider myself establishment right now. I'm borderline establishment, I'm hanging on by my toenails - but I'm establishment. — Dennis Hopper

I made a picture called Super Mario Bros., and my six-year-old son at the time - he's now 18 - he said, 'Dad I think you're probably a pretty good actor, but why did you play that terrible guy King Koopa in Super Mario Bros?' And I said, 'Well Henry, I did that so you could have shoes,' and he said, 'Dad, I don't need shoes that badly.' — Dennis Hopper

[After Easy Rider] I couldn't get another movie, so I lived in Mexico City for a couple of years. I lived in Paris for a couple of years. I didn't take any photographs, and then I went to Japan and saw a Nikon used. I bought it, and I just started, like an alcoholic. I shot 300 rolls of film. That was the beginning of me starting again ... — Dennis Hopper

You're like a turd that won't flush. — Dennis Hopper

The alcohol was awful. I was a terrible alcoholic. I mean, people used to ask how much drugs I did. I said, 'I only do drugs so I can drink more'. I was doing the coke so I could drink more. I mean, I don't know any other reason. I'd start drinking in the morning. I'd drink all day long. — Dennis Hopper

The best and only authentic book written on the sixties underground. — Dennis Hopper

I'm sort of a nervous person with the camera, so I will just shoot arbitrarily until I can focus and compose something, and then I make a shot. So generally, in [the] proof sheets, there are only three or four really concentrated efforts to take a photograph. It's not like a professional kind of person who sets it up so every photograph looks really cool. — Dennis Hopper

I've been a Republican since Reagan. I voted for Bush and his father. I don't tell a lot of people, because I live in a city where somebody who voted for Bush is really an outcast. — Dennis Hopper

I think of [my photographs] as found paintings because I don't crop them, I don't manipulate them or anything. So they're like found objects to me. — Dennis Hopper

Like all artists, I want to cheat death a little and contribute something to the next generation. — Dennis Hopper

Seven of those days were pretty good. The eighth day was the bad one. — Dennis Hopper

'Easy Rider' was never a motorcycle movie to me. A lot of it was about politically what was going on in the country. — Dennis Hopper

The inside of the Pentagon is an incredible place and a dramatic set. We do [travel] outside, but the inside workings of the civilian oversight of the military inside the Pentagon is really about as exciting as anything you ever want to deal with. It is really amazing. — Dennis Hopper

In Method acting, you can't have preconceived ideas. You have to live in the moment. You have to keep yourself open. — Dennis Hopper

Every time I go to Europe, I remember that James Dean never saw Europe, but yet I see his face everywhere. There's James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe - windows of the Champs Elysees, discos in the south of Spain, restaurants in Sweden, t-shirts in Moscow. My life was confused and disoriented for years by his passing. My sense of destiny destroyed - the great films he would have directed, the great performances he would have given, the great humanitarian he would have become, and yet, he's the greatest actor and star I have ever known. — Dennis Hopper

When I was about 14. I saw my first mountain. I saw the ocean for the first time. I remember thinking that that ocean looked very similar to our wheat fields. I didn't know what I thought I would see when I looked out at the ocean, but I thought I'd see something different. — Dennis Hopper

People keep asking me, 'What evil lurks in you to play such bad characters?' There is no evil in me, I just wear tight underwear. — Dennis Hopper

Jimmy [Dean] was the most talented and original actor I ever saw work. He was also a guerrilla artist who attacked all restrictions on his sensibility. Once he pulled a switchblade and threatened to murder his director. I imitated his style in art and in life. It got me in a lot of trouble. — Dennis Hopper

It takes more than going down to the video store and renting "Easy Rider" to be a rebel. — Dennis Hopper

The reality of things going on around me is more interesting than the fantasies of the world I work in. — Dennis Hopper

I used to have to wear a gas mask to school when I was a kid because of the dust. I would tell people that the first light I saw was in a movie theater, because the sun was just a little glow. — Dennis Hopper

Art is a bad word in Hollywood. You use art too many times and they show you the elevator and then your name is taken off the parking lot. — Dennis Hopper

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another. — Dennis Hopper

In a world where the dead have returned to life, the word trouble' loses much of its meaning. — Dennis Hopper

You know, this is such a rich time that we've just been involved in, and there's really a job now for historians. Film is still very young. This is the first hundred years of filmmaking. So I think it's important that we have some sense of history and continuity. Especially in film. — Dennis Hopper

Independent films in this country are in the same position. Miramax and Fine Line are not independent - they're with Disney! Come on. Or they're with Warner Brothers. They're all with somebody. — Dennis Hopper

When we're out of the eighties, the nineties are gonna make the sixties look like the fifties! — Dennis Hopper

I am just a middle-class farm boy from Dodge City and my grandparents were wheat farmers. I thought painting, acting, directing and photography were all part of being an artist. I have made my money that way. And I have had some fun. It's not been a bad life. — Dennis Hopper