Dreyfuss Quotes & Sayings

Wake up and live. It's a fast world out there. — Richard Dreyfuss

I said to my doctor, 'You gotta testme, there's something wrong with me that I would be behaving this way.' — Richard Dreyfuss

Nietzsche said that everyone tells themselves the story of their life. That's true about countries, too. We're constantly telling ourselves the American story. — Ben Dreyfuss

British films are all "room with a view and a staircase and a pond." — Ben Dreyfuss

People who commit adultery must die. Everyone knows that. Any movie tells you that! — Richard Dreyfuss

He's like the tiger shark in Jaws. The one Dreyfuss cuts open in the fisherman's basement. That's why we named him Hooper. You remember the tiger shark? He had a license plate in his stomach?" "I never saw Jaws. I caught one of the sequels on TV in rehab. The one with Michael Caine." Another silence followed, this one awestruck and wondering. "Jesus. No wonder we didn't last," Lou said. — Joe Hill

Other people had strived for freedom and promise and ratatatata but the Constitution [of USA] was the first time we codified it aspirationally and wrote it down and put it up on a wall and said, "this is us." If your father was a cobbler, and his father was a cobbler, and his father was a cobbler, you don't have to be a cobbler. — Ben Dreyfuss

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' ends with the spaceship lands and Richard Dreyfuss' character best on, but a bunch of pilots and sailors from the 1940s get off. You kind of wanted to know what happened next. — Jonathan Nolan

We shot 'CBGB' in Savannah, and then I took another project there afterwards called 'Killing Winston Jones.' It's a dark comedy with Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover, Jon Heder, Danny Masterson and Aly Michalka. It's a great cast and a beautiful film. — Joel David Moore

Tabouli is the best salad, but still, you don't win friends with salad — Richard Dreyfuss

I don't know what its like for most actors, but really clearly for myself acting has always been the fulfilment of personal fantasies. It isn't just art, its about being a person I've always wanted to be, or being in a situation, or being a hero. — Richard Dreyfuss

It is an obvious and blatant stupidity beyond my ability to articulate how dumb it is for us not to teach our children how to run the government. — Richard Dreyfuss

I have more fun and more grand and glorious moments of my life than anyone I've never known. I know that some people call that manic-depress, and that other people call that being touched by God. I just call myself lucky. — Richard Dreyfuss

It must be remembered that the Bush White House has a separate talent for character assassination that must not be confused with a talent for governance. — Richard Dreyfuss

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a teacher, a history teacher. After all, teaching is very much like performing. A teacher is an actor, in a way. It takes a great deal to get, and hold, a class. — Richard Dreyfuss

Power never turns power down, ever, unless institutionally demanded. — Richard Dreyfuss

I never had a role that I set out for. I always wanted to have a body of work that I'm proud of. Save for two projects, which will never pass my lips, I'm happy with what I've done. — Richard Dreyfuss

We're a leader sure, but still a member of the global community. And that's true and important and when America acts like its worst self on the global stage is when we forget that. — Ben Dreyfuss

Civility is not not saying negative or harsh things. It is not the absence of critical analysis. It is the manner in which we are sharing this territorial freedom of political discussion. If our discourse is yelled and screamed and interrupted and patronized, that's uncivil. — Richard Dreyfuss

She did the best that we could be; she was perfectly charming and perfectly loving. She was a dream. And she was the kind of dream that you remember when you wake up smiling. — Richard Dreyfuss

In a way, J.F.K. was the high point of the American dream. In order to go to the moon and back, all we did was say we could - and we did. — Richard Dreyfuss

The happiest I ever been was when I was a struggling actor. I've had big houses and small houses. I always had work available for most of my career. When I actually had to find jobs to make money, that's when I was happy. — Richard Dreyfuss

By telling my own story, I hope to help remove the stigma. It never should be something to hide. — Richard Dreyfuss

We mistake politics for legislative debate. You can be passionate without being personal. — Richard Dreyfuss

When you work in front of the people, either in a film or in television, the people who are in the room with you are not watching you work, they're working so you'd have to light a fire to get them to watch what you were doing. — Richard Dreyfuss

I love the bullshit morning shows. They're so stupid but I love them. — Ben Dreyfuss

Design is a process - an intimate collaboration between engineers, designers, and clients. — Henry Dreyfuss

Theater is completely different from film or television. It has a beginning and a middle and an end and it's different every night. And it's far preferable to any other except in the sense of not getting paid, people who want to eat should do film and television. — Richard Dreyfuss

I decided at age 9, but I was reinforced at age 13 when a teacher told me I had talent. I can't say she really motivated me because I already knew. I knew I had talent. I went to the Jewish community theater and got in plays there. Then I went for the movies.' — Richard Dreyfuss

I'm nothing if not honest. — Richard Dreyfuss

I really think that living is the process of going from complete certainty to complete ignorance. — Richard Dreyfuss

Blue jeans and Hollywood and rock & roll won the cold war. — Ben Dreyfuss

We'll need you to unlock your desk, sir."
"Sorry," Dreyfuss said. "Not until I've read this form."
"You haven't ... looked at it."
"And I'm a very slow reader. Sometimes I wonder if I'm dyslexic. — Jordan Castillo Price

Kerry is an adult - he thinks things through. He learns from the present as well as the past. To George Bush, thinking things through is for sissies. — Richard Dreyfuss

My idols are Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Keaton, John Goodman. Maybe that's what I want for me. — Breckin Meyer

I took the part in 'Mr. Holland's Opus' because no one had ever asked me to play 'a life' before. I get to age through 30 years. The idea really challenged me. — Richard Dreyfuss

We didn't get along, me and Bill Murray. But I've got to give it to him: I don't like him, but he makes me laugh even now. I'm also jealous that he's a better golfer than I am. — Richard Dreyfuss

I didn't understand 3-D in the fifties and I can't say I get it now either. I just don't see what the big deal is. — Richard Dreyfuss

To look ahead one must learn to look back. — Henry Dreyfuss

Happiness has a bad rap. People say it shouldn't be your goal in life. Oh, yes it should. — Richard Dreyfuss

John Kennedy really did extend the reach of the American people and said, like Lincoln said in a way, that our reach is farther than our grasp - and we should aim high. — Richard Dreyfuss

The story of America is necessarily one of progress because if it's not than it's a stale story where we have not risen above Klansmen. — Ben Dreyfuss

Nationality was - and is - far less a divide than age ... because "everything is global, man!" — Ben Dreyfuss

Let's give some substance to patriotism. It may take a generation. — Richard Dreyfuss

But I've lost parts because of my looks. I auditioned to star with Richard Dreyfuss in 'The Buddy System.' The producers said no one would believe he would leave me for another woman. They just couldn't see me with him. — Donna Dixon

There is one solution to all of our problems: Teaching our kids clarity of thought and political representation in democracy. That's it. — Richard Dreyfuss

Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable. — Richard Dreyfuss

American films are the best films. This is a fact. Cinema is - along with Jazz - the great American art form. And cinema in a very real sense created the American identity that has been exported around the world. — Ben Dreyfuss

It's fun to see the light in someone's eyes. It's fun to give your own eccentric experience and have it land. That's fun. — Richard Dreyfuss

Well, I can't (sing or dance). Actually, I sing like a seal and dance like your Uncle Leo at that wedding where he got up and went 'ya, ya, ya'. — Richard Dreyfuss

I spoke so much about being a manic-depressive. I want to bring everyone back to my earliest memories of this companion of mine. Some people call this companion I have an ailment, or worse a terrible nightmare from which some people cannot awaken. I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of. I have nothing that should garner a stigma. — Richard Dreyfuss

The bad guy always gets the best scene and the best lines in the film, and they usually get the most days off. — Richard Dreyfuss

We need to get back to reasoning and thinking things through. The future generation is being brought up in greed and without a true understanding of civics. There is no more emphasis on knowledge and time. As a society we need to process ideas and understand what certain principles are based upon. — Richard Dreyfuss

'Jaws,' first time I saw it, I forgot I was in it. True. Totally forgot, and got as scared as everybody else, and it's a great movie. — Richard Dreyfuss

In my experience, it's usually up to the actor how a character is portrayed. — Richard Dreyfuss

I believe that a nation that allows music to be expendable is in danger of becoming expendable itself. — Richard Dreyfuss

The products we design are going to be ridden in, sat upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated, or in some way used by people individually or en masse. If the point of contact between the product and the people becomes a point of friction, then the industrial designer has failed. If, on the other hand, people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient-or just plain happier-the industrial designer has succeeded. — Henry Dreyfuss

My worst fear is that I'll end up living in some run-down duplex on Wilshire wearing pants hiked up to my nipples and muttering under my breath. — Richard Dreyfuss

The cost of a model is more than compensated for by future savings. It not only presents an accurate picture of the product for the executives, but it also gives the tool-makers and production men an opportunity to criticize and to present manufacturing problems. — Henry Dreyfuss

The rules are all wrong today. The mandate of the media really does pre-date the founding of the United States. — Richard Dreyfuss

When you Google me, you'll find a lot of people don't like Richard Dreyfuss. Because I'm cocky and I present a cocky attitude. But no one has ever disagreed with the notion I represent, that we need more civic education. So far there's 100 percent support for that. — Richard Dreyfuss

Part of me is still waiting to grow up, to be an adult, and the other part knows there is no such thing. — Richard Dreyfuss