Durning Quotes & Sayings

Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources. — Alan Thein Durning

The power of God is available to you today to help you do whatever you need to do and with a smile on your face! — Joyce Meyer

Every married man who wants peace in the relationship, should learn the trick to avoid that one question - 'How is the food?' — Emraan Hashmi

If I had my druthers, I would do only stage work. — Charles Durning

I can't feel a thing; All mournful petal storms are dancing inside the very private spring of my head. — Franz Kafka

If we attempt to preserve the consumer economy indefinitely, ecological forces will dismantle it savagely. If we proceed to dismantle it gradually ourselves, we will have the opportunity of replacing it with a low consumption economy that can endure. — Alan Thein Durning

That place that no one knows about - horrifying things we keep secret. A lot of that is released through acting. — Charles Durning

Dancing came easy for me. Acting came hard. — Charles Durning

He had had much experience of physicians, and said 'the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not'. — Mark Twain

If the life-supporting ecosystems of the planet are to survive for future generations, the consumer society will have to dramatically curtail its use of resources - partly by shifting to high-quality, low-input durable goods and partly by seeking fulfillment through leisure, human relationships, and other nonmaterial avenues. We in the consumer society will have to live a technologically sophisticated version of the life-style currently practiced lower on the economic ladder. — Alan Thein Durning

I was born looking older - and I've been aging since I was a teenager. — Charles Durning

I was doing judo before anybody knew it existed in this country. — Charles Durning

Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies. — Paulo Coelho

I can't count how many of my friends are in the cemetery at Normandy, the heroes are still there, the real heroes. — Charles Durning

I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director. — Charles Durning

I'm the biggest geek of all. Adventure, fantasy, comic books - I can't get enough. — Nathan Fillion

I'd like to have a decade of my life back. I dropped into a void for almost a decade. — Charles Durning

You make the money in movies and TV so you can do theater. I do a play a year ... somewhere. — Charles Durning

I should like to put before every one who is provided, from whatever source, with an income independent of their own exertions the following proposition. In order to justify the possession of this money, it is necessary to expend as much time, thought and energy in working for the advantage of other people as would be required for you to earn an equivalent sum in any recognized profession. By adopting this mode of thought we can accustom ourselves to think of money in terms of labour, our own or someone else's, and regard the one as a just exchange for the other. — Catherine Durning Whetham

I never waited 27 years, because 27 years ago I was just born. My parents never told me, 'If you don't win Roland Garros we take you to the orphanage. — Roger Federer

I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves. — Sonny Rollins

Most archivists don't like surprises. That's why we work in the past. — Brad Meltzer

The intellectual scholars who keep saying 'this is wrong' and 'that is wrong', are neither scholars nor intellectuals. In reality, they are more ignorant than the layman. — Abhijit Naskar

Who would have predicted a century ago that the richest civilizations in history would be made up of polluted tracts of suburban development dominated by the private automobile, shopping malls, and a throwaway economy? Surely, this is not the ultimate fulfillment of our destiny. — Alan Thein Durning

I lack confidence as an actor. — Charles Durning

Of course, I'm not often the top dog, but sometimes it's better not to be top dog, because you last longer. If a movie or play flops, you always blame the lead. They say, 'He couldn't carry it.' They always blame him. But they rarely blame the second or third banana. — Charles Durning

So what was better for us all? An ignorance, or a cautiousness like his, towards our own hearts. — Michael Ondaatje

Intuition is knowingness, and this field of unbounded knowing, of knowingness, is within every human being. You start tapping into that and it becomes an ocean of solutions. — David Lynch

Acting is ephemeral. You can't hang it on a wall. You can't throw it off. And you can't bring it out of a closet. It's there one night and it's gone the next, at least with stage acting anyhow. — Charles Durning

I love music. It's always been very dear to me. It's a big passion. — Tiffany Trump

I think I've done 200 plays and 125 movies, so I've been very lucky to have made a living at acting. — Charles Durning

There's no nobility with war. It's tear-'em-up destruction that leaves you frustrated, bitter and angry ... If you really knew what it was like for an hour, you wouldn't want anyone to go through it. — Charles Durning

There are many secrets in us, in the depths of our souls, that we don't want anyone to know about. — Charles Durning

I was born a character actor. — Charles Durning

Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't. — Charles Durning

But the basic value of a sustainable society, the ecological equivalent of the Golden Rule, is simple: each generation should meet its needs without jeopardizing the prospects for future generations to meet their own needs. — Alan Thein Durning

You're out there on a high wire without a net, and that's the way actors operate. They have to be fearless about how they work and they have to create a life for the audience in 90 minutes and make them believe. — Charles Durning

Dispossessed peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, hungry nomads turn their herds out into fragile African rangeland, reducing it to desert, and small farmers in India and the Philippines cultivate steep slopes, exposing them to the erosive powers of rain. Perhaps half the world's billion-plus absolute poor are caught in a downward spiral of ecological and economic impoverishment. In desperation, they knowingly abuse the land, salvaging the present by savaging the future. — Alan Thein Durning

But I swore to myself that we'd find our friends and our ymbryne, no matter the cost, even if there were only bodies to recover - even if it meant adding our own to the pile. — Ransom Riggs

I would rather do a play because it's instantaneous. You go on the stage, and you know whether it's happening or not. Somebody asked me 'What is acting?' And I said, 'Acting is listening.' And if you ain't listening, nobody's listening. — Charles Durning

We really need to change taxation policy so that it is not skewed against owning more than one house. — Andrew Forrest

In order for your dreams to come true, you've got to stay awake. — Charles Durning