Quotes & Sayings About Oscars

Remember a few years ago when they left Bea Arthur out of the death reel at the Oscars? Bea Arthur! How did they leave Bea Arthur out? She was in Mame; she was in All in the Family; she was in Maude; she was a Golden Girl, for God's sake! Bea was not only one of Hollywood's leading ladies, she was one of Hollywood's leading men! — Joan Rivers

There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde's plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics. — Brander Matthews

The one person whom I would like to be is Meryl Streep. Even at her age, she sits alongside the younger heroines at the Oscars with her name in the nominee list, and others around her wonder whether they still stand a chance. — Rani Mukerji

On Friday evening Martin and Mona went to the United Artists Theatre to see a film already being mentioned for the Academy award. It had three stars, ran a hundred and ten minutes, and bored them both to petrifaction. (In brief, the award was in the bag.)
The Case of the Seven of Calvary — Anthony Boucher

Great news! Hosting Oscars counts five hours toward my community service! — Billy Crystal

Truly what the Emmys are about are the machine behind them, and Oscars are the same way, where if you have a big enough machine behind you, you get nominated, because truly how many of the best performances actually win ... not many. — Christopher Judge

I work under the assumption that, generally speaking, my taste and the taste of the Oscar voters are not one in the same. — Seth Rogen

The possibility of an Oscar is something I definitely think about and the fact that I can even say that is just a blessing. It's something I would be incredibly honored to be a part of. — Common

You really just have to love the process. I can't tell you the amount of film sets I've been on where people are talking about Oscars in the middle of the production. It happens all the time. — Olivia Wilde

The only thing in the world worse than being Oscar Wilde is not being Oscar Wilde. — Oscar Wilde

Television has its own award. It's called the Emmy. It's a good award. I like it. I have one. But you don't see movies like 'The King's Speech' win Oscars and then go to TV and qualify for Emmys. In documentaries, some networks have been able to game the system. — Michael Moore

The truth is, most of those female stories that are contending for Oscars are directed by men. Let's be honest. I looked at the 44 Oscar contenders in Variety that someone wrote up - there was not one directed by a woman. All the ones that were getting an Oscar pitch with the money and everything behind them were by men. — Catherine Hardwicke

I remember during Oscar season, the thing I hated most was being talked to differently; people treat you differently. And then I suddenly understood why celebrities can be so weird; it's hard to act normal when no-one treats you normally. — Jennifer Lawrence

To go to the Oscars for 'Moneyball' - that was pretty amazing. — Chris Pratt

Sure I was glad to see John Wayne win the Oscar I'm always glad to see the fat lady win the Cadillac on TV, too. — Robert Mitchum

Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down? — Sandra Bullock

When you do a film, all you want is to make the best film possible. You don't think about Oscars. But it's really flattering. Please, bring it on! — Demian Bichir

I have no reason as a director to have films go up in versions that I don't like. My only experience of film after ten years is honestly that if a picture doesn't get second-guessed you're looking at four Oscars, and if a picture does get second-guessed, you're not. I've got an advanced degree in that lesson. — William Monahan

Fashion is something I've always been interested in ... I used to watch the Oscars but paid no attention to the awards ... It wasn't until I started attending red carpet events and was flown out to Paris for my first show, and saw how much is put into it all, that I had this new appreciation for everything. — Hailee Steinfeld

Oh sure, now you like him [after the audience applaud David Oyelowo]. — Neil Patrick Harris

It has always been Oscar Peterson. He is my Rachmaninoff. — Shirley Horn

For one thing, she hadn't exactly chosen a field; although she has since childhood imagined picking up her Oscar, the category has never been determined. There was some thought that by the time she grew up they would give out Oscars for Best Novel (and that by then she would have written one), or that maybe she would just get some kind of honorary Oscar for her distinctive life observations made in everyday conversations, or the occasional letter. — Elizabeth Crane

Nate Silver is now forecasting Oscar winners. The only area of life in which he has no expertise, ironically, is life itself. — Norman Chad

I never liked the Oscars. They didn't do too much for me at all. I felt like a big, vulnerable hunk of baloney being used to sell some products. — Nick Nolte

When you get to know some of the history of the game, Oscar Robertson is one of the names that pops up first. — LeBron James

I love watching the Oscars and seeing everybody saying all that 'it's an honour just to be nominated' rubbish. Then you see their faces when the split screen comes up as the winner is announced - the losers are all smiling through gritted teeth and looking as if they just swallowed half a pound of soor plooms. — John Niven

Tonight we celebrate Hollywood's best and whitest, sorry ... brightest. — Neil Patrick Harris

They almost had to cancel the Oscars tonight because all of the designers and stylists are still in line in San Francisco trying to marry one another. — Joan Rivers

Oscar always opens up doors, especially the night of the Oscars. On that night, you hold that gold man, and it's like having Gandalf's staff. You can go anywhere and do anything. It's a talisman of such power. — Alex Gibney

To get an Oscar would be an incredible moment in my career, there is no doubt about that. But the 'Lord of the Rings' films are not made for Oscars, they are made for the audience. — Peter Jackson

Speaking of Oscars, I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy. — Marilyn Monroe

Most of my wardrobe is vintage, and I've worn dresses to the Oscars that I got for $10, — Winona Ryder

Oscar Peterson is my favorite all-around pianist. There are pianists I like because of one thing and pianists I like because of another. But overall, I like Oscar Peterson best. — Carmen McRae

As part of my job, I got malaria really badly and was put in intensive care, and I had a hallucination because they give you this cocktail of drugs to fix you so you don't die, and I had this hallucination that I was at the Oscars and I won and I was a really good actress, and it was so real that when I came out of the hospital, I started saying to people I'm going to become an actress. — Rebel Wilson

I didn't really expect to be coming to the Oscars. — Daniel Woodrell

Fear is the condom of life. It doesn't allow you to enjoy things. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

In the 1970s and 1980s, I got to do some great work. The Oscars are really nice, but the best part is that I had the opportunity to do that kind of work. — Sally Field

Cry when you get a Golden Globe. Then you can get an Oscar nomination. — Jerry Seinfeld

Do we stand up over a gold plated trophy? Or do we stand up and say we need equal wages and equal treatment?The Oscars have not been any different for what ... 89 years? But why do we keep wanting to get thrown a bone? Why do we want to keep saying 'Can we please come to your party? — Mo'Nique Imes-Jackson

The word was out that maybe, just maybe, a British accent would fit. The hair, the skin tone and the bridgework would have to be up to American network standards, but there had been a lot of British accents up there thanking their mothers for their Oscars, a lot of British accents singing on Broadway, and some unusually big audiences tuning in to British accents in wig on Masterpiece Theatre. — Douglas Adams

Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today. — Herbie Hancock

The worst thing to happen at the Oscars would be if nothing happened. You want something unscripted, something to riff on, something kinda out there. — Seth MacFarlane

Winning the Pulitzer is a really mellow, fabulous thing. You don't sit and wait for them to open an envelope. You already know you won, and you have a nice lunch. Oscars are more stressful. I had to sit for three hours and wait for my category. I had to fly to Los Angeles. For the Pulitzer I just had to go up to Columbia. But, while the president of Columbia gave me the Pulitzer, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gave me the Oscar, so that was better. — John Patrick Shanley

The Oscar nomination is the best marketing you can get. — Paul Young

I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic - the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win. — Roger Ebert

Welcome to the 77th and last Oscars. — Chris Rock

I won and I get to scream and jump a little. But I got to go back to work tomorrow. — Benicio Del Toro

I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

The Oscar is the most valuable, but least expensive, item of world-wide public relations ever invented by any industry. — Frank Capra

The subject of Citizenfour, Edward Snowden, could not be here for some treason. — Neil Patrick Harris

I think everyone practices their Oscars acceptance speech with a shampoo bottle, and I've done my fair share of them. It's really surreal to be able to do it in real life. — Graham Moore

That was never my intention to compete with the Oscars. — Russell Simmons

I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you're really going about it the wrong way. — Nicolas Cage

I'm still pulled over ... We were nominated for two Oscars for 'Monster's Ball,' and I almost didn't make the Oscars because I got pulled over in Beverly Hills. — Lee Daniels

The Oscars is a sport. There's the excitement of watching something live, as it happens. — Neil Meron

If you look at the Oscars and look at the Best Foreign Language series, you see that the films are coming from everywhere - from Quebec, Israel, Poland, and Belgium. It's not the usual French, German, etc. This category is opening up to socially engaged and political films. I think we're going to see a cross over to the main categories also. It's part of this global environment now and I'm grateful that the Academy is having this window on world cinema. — Philippe Falardeau

For the first time, you can actually see the losers turn green — Bob Hope

[To reporter who telephoned with news of her Oscar:] If you are joking me, I will get up immediately and kill you wherever you are. — Anna Magnani

I always felt that Bette Davis was one of the great screen actresses who never really got her due - she won two Oscars, but the last was in 1938, and that was really before all the great work that she did. — Robert Osborne

[Boycott Oscar] is like crying about not having enough icing on your cake. It's just ridiculous. — Ice Cube

One of the best things about the award season is that when a British film succeeds at the Oscars and BAFTAs, such as 'Slumdog Millionaire' in 2009 and 'The King's Speech' this year, the British public get right behind it with an immense sense of national pride. — Gurinder Chadha

When I think about the idea of Rebel Wilson having to go to the Oscars and not having something amazing to wear that's made for her, it drives me mad. — Beth Ditto

Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It's very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell. — Michael Caine

I never won an Oscar ... and the Oscars never won Irene Papas — Irene Papas

Whoever invented the meeting must have had Hollywood in mind. I think they should consider giving Oscars for meetings: Best Meeting of the Year, Best Supporting Meeting, Best Meeting Based on Material from Another Meeting. — William Goldman

Some of my best friends are Oscar Wilde. — Martin Luther King Jr.

When Marlee [Matlin] won her Oscar, she said, "and I just want to thank my parents." When I was saying those words for her, I knew my parents were in the audience. I was saying it for her and a little bit for myself, even though I wasn't saying it in sign language and they didn't understand what I was saying. — Jack Jason

Tom Cruise shouldn't try to win Oscars. He should just smile and kick people in the face and leave the acting to Hugh Jackman. Why Hugh Jackman? I dunno; come up with your own example, smart-ass. — Doug Benson

A good movie is a movie that you could see over and over again, not a movie that wins a Oscar, or a movie that makes a lot of money. It's a movie that you personally can watch over and over again. That, to me, is a measure of a good movie. — Ice Cube

Lots of people like Seth MacFarlane. Many other people like watching the Oscars. But nobody likes both, not even Seth MacFarlane, who has no idea what the Oscars are. — Rob Sheffield

Human Millipede 6 was the highest-grossing movie of the summer and returned Nicholas Cage to Oscar-winning status. — C.Z. Hazard

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar. — Michael Caine

I've never wanted an Oscar, although they are reassuring to an actor who doesn't know how really great he is. — Bob Hope

When I went to the Oscars - the only time I've ever been to the Oscars - a few years ago, I wore this Prada dress covered in cooking utensils. I got drunk at the end of the night and started ripping them off and giving them as presents to people, so that was fun. I'm pretty sure that was the point of it, that's how Miuccia meant for it to go I'm sure. — Carey Mulligan

I love the Oscars. All sorts of tacky people win. And watching everyone run up and down those aisles is just adorable. — Geraldine Page

Is Chris Rock still gonna host the Oscars after this blatant racism?? Is everyone still gonna show up?? — Tyrese Gibson

You need to look like a lady at the Oscars. Otherwise, Joan Rivers will tear you apart. Then again, you aren't really anyone till Joan Rivers tears you apart. — Paris Hilton

I have no regard for that kind of ceremony. I just don't think they know what they're doing. When you see who wins those things-or who doesn't win them-you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is. — Woody Allen

Im in my mid-30s, Ive won an Oscar, I have four children. You figure out if my deafness has adversely affected my life. — Marlee Matlin

Tom McCarthy said to me, 'Buddy, you got an Oscar nomination through that haircut! That's the real feat, man.' — Mark Ruffalo

You don't make pictures for Oscars. — Martin Scorsese

The Golden Thumb is not as good as the Oscar, but it is a lot of fun. — Roger Ebert

You never make movies for Oscars. — Peter Jackson

We called them the Nine-to-Fivers. They lived in accordance with nature, waking and sleeping with the cycle of the sun. Mealtimes, business hours, the world conformed to their schedule. The best markets, the A-list concerts, the street fairs, the banner festivities were on Saturdays and Sundays. They sold out movies, art openings, ceramics classes. They had evenings to waste. The watched the Super Bowl, they watched the Oscars, they made reservations for dinner because they ate dinner at a normal time. They brunched, ruthlessly, and read the Sunday Times on Sundays. They moved in crowds that reinforced their citizenship: crowded museums, crowded subways, crowded bars, the city teeming with extras for the movie they starred in.

They were dining, shopping, consuming, unwinding, expanding while we were working, diminishing, being absorbed into their scenery. That is why we -- the Industry People -- got so greedy when the Nine-to-Fivers went to bed. — Stephanie Danler

I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream. I never thought this would ever happen. — Hilary Swank

Upon accepting her Oscar for "Julia," 1978: "My dear colleagues, I thank you very very much for this tribute to my work. I think that Jane Fonda and I have done the best work of our lives, and I salute you and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should. — Vanessa Redgrave

You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk. — Ian McKellen

Whether you win or not, the night the Oscars are over, the curtain goes down and you go back to the grind. Period. — Marcia Gay Harden

I always get a little bit pissed off when stand-up comedy is not recognised as being as good a craft as being an actor. We give Oscars to people and it's like, 'Aw, this person is the greatest person on earth', but being an actor is pretty easy in comparison to stand-up comedy. It's no surprise that several stand-up comics have gone on to become great actors. I don't know any great actors that have gone on to become great stand-up comics. — Jim Jefferies

I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia (sister Olivia de Havilland) did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it! — Joan Fontaine

The Oscars Ceremony: a great workout for the gag reflex — Dean Cavanagh

For any of you who don't know, the Golden Globes are just like the Oscars, but without all that esteem. The Golden Globes are to the Oscars what Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton. A bit louder, a bit trashier, a bit drunker, and more easily bought. — Ricky Gervais

All I know is there's thousands of people in the Academy and a lot of them, the majority of them, haven't won Oscars.A lot of people are crying, I guess. — Clint Eastwood

Truth is, we offered it to Tom Hanks, which pretty much every movie in America does, but Tom passed. Billy Bob said that Hanks recently called and said he's voting for all of us for Oscars, he loved the film. — Peter Berg

I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present. — Hugh Jackman

The last time I saw a blonde with red streaks in her hair she was laying on Oscar Pistorius' bathroom floor, — Joan Rivers

In the heyday of the Oscars, there were electric sparks flying. When Cher went in her fabulous Bob Mackie dress and her Mohawk, and Bjoerk with her swan dress. Then we thought it was bad taste; now I think it should have been the best dress because she stood out. — Andre Leon Talley

The irony is I did an intimate film in France with no stars and that got me to Hollywood. It got me to the Oscars. If I had tried to imitate the Americans or the Hollywood movies with a commercial recipe, I'd never have gotten to Hollywood. Although, it was not my goal in any way, and I never thought there was any connection between Monsieur Lazhar and the Oscars. — Philippe Falardeau

For the Oscars, I had a speech in my hand, and I just knew if I opened the piece of paper, I was going to be unable to read it. So I just thought, 'I'm going to say, as coherently as I can, whatever I can.' — Susanne Bier

A refusal of nature as a model is a tradition that goes right back to Oscar Wilde. — Todd Haynes