Marlon Brando Quotes & Sayings

Even today I meet people who think of me automatically as a tough, insensitive, coarse guy named Stanley Kowalski. They can't help it, but, it is troubling. — Marlon Brando

If there's anything unsettling to the stomach, it's watching actors on television talk about their personal lives. — Marlon Brando

Working with any actor is like working with a monkey. — Marlon Brando

Elvis Presley had nothing to do with excellence, just myth. — Marlon Brando

People will like you who never met you, they think you're absolutely wonderful; and then people also will hate you, for reasons that have nothing to do with any real experience with you. People don't want to lose their enemies. We have favorite enemies, people we love to hate and we hate to love. If they do something good, we don't like it. I found myself doing that with Ronald Reagan. He is anathema to me. If he does something that's reasonable, I find my mind trying to find some way to interpret it so that it's not reasonable, so that somewhere it's jingoist extremism. — Marlon Brando

Ask most kids about details about Auschwitz or about how the American Indians were assassinated as a people and they don't know anything about it. They don't want to know anything. Most people just want their beer or their soap opera or their lullaby. — Marlon Brando

I can still taste that first beer I bought with my own paycheck. — Marlon Brando

[...] I realize that to forgive with your mind is not always to forgive in your heart. — Marlon Brando

I don't stretch my hand out anymore, but I never get tired of waiting for the next magic. — Marlon Brando

The military mind has one aim, and that is to make soldiers react as mechanically as possible. They want the same predictability in a man as they do in a telephone or a machine gun, and they train their soldiers to act as a unit, not as individuals. — Marlon Brando

Only the one who walks his own way can't be overtaken. — Marlon Brando

Acting, in general, is something most people think they're incapable of, but they do it from morning to night. The subtlest acting I've ever seen is by ordinary people trying to show they feel something they don't, or trying to hide something. It's something everyone learns at an early age. — Marlon Brando

An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening. — Marlon Brando

Acting is an empty and usless profession. — Marlon Brando

The power and influence of a movie star is curious: I didn't ask for it or take it; people gave it to me. Simply because you're a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges. — Marlon Brando

The more sensitive you are, the more certain you are to be brutalized, develop scabs, never evolve. Never allow yourself to feel anything, because you always feel to much. — Marlon Brando

I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. — Marlon Brando

If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It's the ultimate hustle. — Marlon Brando

I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture. — Marlon Brando

I had to read Wuthering Heights for English and I never enjoyed a book in all my life as much as that one. — Marlon Brando

If we are not our brother's keeper, at least let us not be his executioner. — Marlon Brando

In the United States we think we have at our disposal virtually everything - and I emphasize the word "think." We have big houses and cars, good medical treatment, jets, trains and monorails; we have computers, good communications, many comforts and conveniences. But where have they gotten us? We have an abundance of material things, but a successful society produces happy people, and I think we produce more miserable people than almost anyplace on earth. I've traveled all over the world, and I've never seen people who are quite as unhappy as they are in the United States. We have plenty, but we have nothing, and we always want more. In the pursuit of material success as our culture measures it, we have given up everything. We have lost the capacity to produce people who are joyful. The pursuit of the material has become our reason for living, not enjoyment of living itself. — Marlon Brando

I refused to be a fool dancing on a string held by all of those big shots. I don't apologise, that's my life — Marlon Brando

When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: 'God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don't do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.' So I really don't think in the long sense. — Marlon Brando

There's a line in the picture where he (Johnny - The Wild One) snarls, 'Nobody tells me what to do.' That's exactly how I've felt all my life. — Marlon Brando

I've always found animals easy to love because their love is unconditional. They are trusting, loyal and undemanding except in wanting love in return. — Marlon Brando

George Bernard Shaw said that thinking was the greatest of all human endeavors, but I would say that feeling was. Allowing yourself to feel things, to feel love or wrath, hatred, rage. — Marlon Brando

Sometimes you just get the feeling that here it is 11o'clock in the morning and you're not in school. — Marlon Brando

All I want to be is normally insane. — Marlon Brando

Never surrender to the momentum of mediocrity. — Marlon Brando

I have eyes like those of a dead pig. — Marlon Brando

That's a part of the sickness in America, that you have to think in terms of who wins, who loses, who's good, who's bad, who's best, who's worst ... I don't like to think that way. Everybody has their own value in different ways, and I don't like to think who's the best at this. I mean, what's the point of it? — Marlon Brando

I only mean forty per cent of what I say. — Marlon Brando

Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we're acting. Most people do it all day long. — Marlon Brando

You've seen every single race besmirched, but you never saw an unfavorable image of a kike because the Jews are ever watchful for that. They never allowed it to be shown on the screen! — Marlon Brando

An actor is a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening! — Marlon Brando

Acting serves as the quintessential social lubricant and a device for protecting our interests and gaining advantage in every aspect of life. — Marlon Brando

I don't know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that I'm going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass. — Marlon Brando

The close-up says everything. — Marlon Brando

We don't go anywhere. Going somewhere is for squares. We just go! — Marlon Brando

I value each woman for what she has to offer whether it be charm-beauty-wit-intelligence or humor but warmth is the quality I value most. — Marlon Brando

If you're successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you're unsuccessful it's worse than having a skin disease. — Marlon Brando

We make up any excuse to preserve myths about people we love, but the reverse is also true; if we dislike an individual we adamantly resist changing our opinion, even when somebody offers proof of his decency, because it's vital to have myths about both the gods and devils in our lives. — Marlon Brando

The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money. — Marlon Brando

I believe I did what honor dictated and that belief sustains me, except for a slight desire to be dead which I'm sure will pass. — Marlon Brando

The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them. — Marlon Brando

Bertolucci is extraordinary in his ability to perceive, he's a poet ... he is very easy to work for. — Marlon Brando

Hollywood is run by Jews, it is owned by Jews ... — Marlon Brando

In a close-up, the audience is only inches away, and your face becomes the stage. — Marlon Brando

Would people applaud me if I was a good plumber? — Marlon Brando

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication. — Marlon Brando

It really don't matter what you're thinking about, as long as you're thinking about something. — Marlon Brando

I put on an act sometimes, and people think I'm insensitive. Really, it's like a kind of armor because I'm too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out. — Marlon Brando

I thank you for not snoring. — Marlon Brando

Too much success can ruin you as surely as too much failure. — Marlon Brando

It's a long climb up Fools' Hill. — Marlon Brando

Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite. — Marlon Brando

Horror ... and moral terror ... are your friends. — Marlon Brando

I suppose the story of my life is a search for love, but more than that, I have been looking for a way to repair myself from the damages I suffered early on and to define my obligation, if I had any, to myself and my species. — Marlon Brando

Nobody "becomes" a character. You can't act unless you are who you are. — Marlon Brando

People often say that an actor 'plays' a character well, but that's an amateurish notion. Developing a characterization is not merely a matter of putting on makeup and a costume and stuffing Kleenex in your mouth. That's what actors used to do, and then called it a characterization. In acting everything comes out of what you are, or some aspect of who you are. — Marlon Brando

What might be a brave choice for you, for another person they may simply not experience fear. — Marlon Brando

Every time you get knocked down you get up stronger. — Marlon Brando

Most writers write haphazardly. The actor is fighting unjustified words all the time. — Marlon Brando

I don't think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed into as many females as possible. — Marlon Brando

The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis. — Marlon Brando

In being a loving son, I suppose I was trying to become a loved son. — Marlon Brando

I don't mind that I'm fat. You still get the same money. — Marlon Brando

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor and surviving. — Marlon Brando

Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent. — Marlon Brando

If you've never known love, you never know where it is, you don't know what it looks like or it sounds like, you look in the most unlikely places to find it. — Marlon Brando

Mafia is the best example of capitalism we have. — Marlon Brando

The four pillars of wisdom that support journalistic endeavors are: lies, stupidity, money-grubbing, and ethical irresponsibility. — Marlon Brando

It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek. — Marlon Brando

Regret is useless in life. It's in the past. All we have is now. — Marlon Brando

People around me never say anything. They just seem to want to hear what I have to say. That's why I do all the talking. — Marlon Brando

A sensitive person receives fifty impressions where somebody else may only get seven. Sensitive people are so vulnerable; they're so easily brutalized and hurt just because they are sensitive. The more sensitive you are, the more certain you are to be brutalized, develop scabs.Analysis helps. It helped me. But still, the last eight, nine years I've been pretty messed up, a mess pretty much. — Marlon Brando

The most repulsive thing you could ever imagine is the inside of a camel's mouth. That and watching a girl eat octopus or squid. — Marlon Brando

( ... the non-conformist, how do you keep from getting scarred?)/i don't! i got a scar here ... and uh i got a scar on my knee ... and uh a few scars on my soul. — Marlon Brando

Most of the successful people in Hollywood are failures as human beings. — Marlon Brando

An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer. — Marlon Brando

The Jews control Hollywood and use it to promote their own agenda. — Marlon Brando

Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting, that's the sign of maturity. — Marlon Brando

Food has always been my friend. When I wanted to feel better or had a crisis in my life, I opened the icebox. — Marlon Brando

We only have so many faces in our pockets — Marlon Brando

With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too close. Like catching snakes. — Marlon Brando

If the expenditure of money for entertainment in America is any indication of taste, clearly the majority of us are addicted to trash. — Marlon Brando

I think Robert F. Kennedy really, finally, cared; he realized that all of the rhetoric had to be put down into some form of action. That's perhaps the reason they killed him. They don't care what you say, you can say as much as you want to, provided you don't do anything. If you start to do something and your shuffling raises too much dust, they will disestablish you. That's what happened to Martin Luther King. — Marlon Brando

At Field Elementary School in Omaha, I'd been the only one in my class to flunk kindergarten; I don't remember why, — Marlon Brando