Paul Newman Quotes & Sayings

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. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society. — Paul Newman

Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it. — Paul Newman

Fill the moment and find variety. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

A man with no enemies is a man with no character. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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

It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now - my good Lord - look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd. — Paul Newman

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? — Paul Newman

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

To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.
Quoted in "Paul Newman's Road To Glory", interview with Paul Fischer, Film Monthly (2002-07-01) — Paul Newman

At the beginning of your career, it's 'Who is Paul Newman?' and then it's 'Get me Paul Newman.' Then it's 'Get me a young Paul Newman.' Then it's 'Who is Paul Newman?' — Paul Newman

It's always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black. — Paul Newman

From salad dressings all blessings flow. — Paul Newman

Building weapons that we don't need, don't work, and aren't necessary, and have no mission - that's not bad politics, that's robbery. — Paul Newman

Now then, if we were to go the lowest road and plaster my face on the bottle of oil and vinegar dressing just to line our pockets, it would sink. But to go the low road to get to the high road- shameless exploitation for charity, for the common good- now that's an idea worth the hustle, a reciprocal trade agreement. — Paul Newman

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

On considering adultery - Why go out for hamburger when I can have steak at home? — Paul Newman

when u have no enemies ,you are characterless. — Paul Newman

Those with a moral deficit put on a good show, and sleep like a baby. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other. You can't spend a lifetime breathing down each other's necks. We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger. — Paul Newman

I check my pulse and if I can find it, I know I've got a chance — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

The best gift you can give yourself is the gift of possibility. — Paul Newman

The need is great and so are the opportunities to make a difference. — Paul Newman

Dreams without movement are delusions, escapes, kid's play. You have to put your feet into your dreams if they're ever going to be reality. The dreamers we know and love today are the ones who worked the hardest — Paul Newman

What could be better than to hold your hand out to people less fortunate than you are? — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

I have taken roads that I wished I had not traveled on. And I'm traveling on some pretty exciting ones, too. — Paul Newman

The problem with getting older is you still remember how things used to be. — Paul Newman

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

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? — Paul Newman

When you see the right thing to do, you'd better do it. — Paul Newman

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

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. — Paul Newman

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

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. — Paul Newman

If you have no enemies, you have no character. — Paul Newman

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I'm not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out. — Paul Newman

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? — Paul Newman

A lot of people have dreams and never do anything about them. When you have ideas and dreams, you do something about it. — Paul Newman

In racing, the fastest person wins. It is very simple. — Paul Newman

We've polluted the stratosphere with these chlorine and bromine compounds, and because it's now colder, and because we have this change in the climate, we're getting more ozone loss than we would have gotten in a normal year. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed. — Paul Newman

I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals. — Paul Newman

On adultery: Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home? — Paul Newman

Watching something is nothing like doing it. — Paul Newman

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

You only grow when you are alone. — Paul Newman

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

For some players, luck itself is an art — Paul Newman

Money won is twice as sweet as money earned. — Paul Newman

Of course I know Julie Andrews. She's the last of the really great broads. — Paul Newman

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

I wasn't running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store. Of course now that I'm selling spaghetti sauce (with Newman's Own), I begin to understand the romance of business.. the allure of being the biggest fish in the pond and the juice you get from beating out your competitors. — Paul Newman

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

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. — Paul Newman

Our marriage works because we each carry clubs of equal weight and size. — Paul Newman

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

What we got here is a failure to communicate. — Paul Newman

Choose between yesterday and tomorrow. — Paul Newman

I'm a great believer in luck and the extraordinary role that plays in all of our lives. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don't look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community. — Paul Newman

I can eat fifty eggs. — Paul Newman

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

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

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. — Paul Newman

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

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

The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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

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

Honey, Don't go shooting all the dogs 'cause one of them's got fleas — Paul Newman

Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser. — Paul Newman

The star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars. — Paul Newman

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

I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there's a spirit that takes action, a heart, and a talent that doesn't come from my blue eyes. — Paul Newman

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

Where the hell are the singing cats? — Paul Newman

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

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. — Paul Newman

I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being ... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand. — Paul Newman

A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs — Paul Newman

There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black. — Paul Newman

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character. — Paul Newman

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. — Paul Newman

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