Best 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

Other people like Neil Young and Dennis Hopper, those are just really close knit family friends. — Amber Tamblyn

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

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

I know, when I look into the eyes of my own children, the look of wonder when I speak of life back in the '60s. That's why the Rolling Stones are such a hit even in their 60s, why Dennis Hopper is so compelling, even when he's making pitches for something unhip as long-term financial planning. — Chris Matthews

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

[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

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

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

On one side you have book burners, Congressional wives and Pat Robertson. On the other side, you have vulgar comedians, foul-mouthed rap groups and Dennis Hopper - all your choices should be so easy. — Sandra Bernhard

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

I love acting. I just love it. It's in my bones. I remember when I was a kid, I watched an interview with Dennis Hopper talking about Jimmy Dean on the set of Rebel Without A Cause. Jimmy said to him, "If you've got to cry in a scene, you've got to cry. Make it real." And that's all that I believe in. — Andrew Lincoln

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

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

As a child, I was influenced by a great deal but in particular the 1969 film Easy Rider exerted quite a bit of influence in that I longed for a Harley Davison chopper motorcycle so that I could pretend to be one of the lead characters from that particular film, either Wyatt or Billy, (played respectively by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper).
The closest I got to realise this dream was back in 1971 when the chopper bike was the craze throughout the nation. It even had gears! The big padded seat was comfortable for your backside and you really thought you were one of the gang from Easy Rider on your Harley Davidson. — Stephen Richards

We're all Dennis Hopper now. — John McWhorter

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

He's so interesting because you think you know Dennis Hopper, but you don't really know Dennis Hopper. I don't really know Dennis Hopper, I just know him from the silver screen. — Nathan Lane

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

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

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

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

I wasn't an expert or even the biggest Dennis Hopper fan in the world. All I knew about him were through his associations with James Dean and Andy Warhol, the fact that he made 'Easy Rider.' I thought his story would have a really great outlaw literary quality to it. — Tom Folsom