Perlman Quotes & Sayings

There are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at a young age. I wasn't, thank God. — Itzhak Perlman

I realized you don't need to belong to any fuckin' edifice or ascribe to any dogma to have a relationship with God, to be a good person. You just have to be a good person. — Ron Perlman

You don't need to be seeing someone to be in love with her. You can have lost touch with her, she can have hurt you, even inexplicably. If you ever felt that you really knew her and that it was what you knew that you loved, and if you remember what it was you once knew, why is it so crazy to retain that love still? — Elliot Perlman

It can be a huge help to parents considering the adoption of an older child, when college is just a few years away, to know that there are post-adoption resources and specific financial assistance opportunities available to them. — Rhea Perlman

The thing that's cool about the recording booth is that it's so perfunctory, so cut-to-the-chase. — Ron Perlman

Perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left. — Itzhak Perlman

I'm just a one-instrument player. I have been known to play a blender, but I basically play - just play the violin. — Itzhak Perlman

One must always practice slowly. If you learn something slowly, you forget it slowly. — Itzhak Perlman

For people who are really talented, what you don't say becomes extremely important. You have to judge what to say and what to leave alone so you can let the talent develop. — Itzhak Perlman

We too often laughed at the same time to be a whore and a lonely guy. — Elliot Perlman

It's really disgusting what Hollywood can do to a guy. — Ron Perlman

The most important thing to do is really listen. — Itzhak Perlman

I can't walk very well, but I'm not onstage to do walking. I'm on the stage to play. — Itzhak Perlman

That's always been Guillermo's preference, is to have as much there practically as is humanly possible, and that digital graphic images are more a punctuation mark than they are a replacement. — Ron Perlman

If you play something well, I don't care what it is. I mean, I don't play an electric [violin] - I tried. It's actually interesting. — Itzhak Perlman

I'm not a social rider. Strictly professional. — Ron Perlman

I always consider myself lucky that I can actually cry listening to some music. — Itzhak Perlman

You draw on your own childhood every time you tee it up as an actor. — Ron Perlman

Ask many of us who are disabled what we would like in life and you would be surprised how few would say, 'Not to be disabled.' We accept our limitations. — Itzhak Perlman

Preparing for a future in music is an expensive proposition. — Itzhak Perlman

I hold him to my chest. My love for him is the only unequivocally good thing I know is always there inside of me. It is the reason I should be spared all that is coming, the only reason. — Elliot Perlman

I like dialogue in novels. I wanted to avoid laying history on with a trowel - appearing to be lecturing, as opposed to the characters lecturing their children or students. Dialogue can humanise the story and make it go down somewhat more smoothly. — Elliot Perlman

Gandhi, Harlem, Christ, Jews in Europe, a black man living over there on Broadway in the Union Theological Seminary in 1930: you never know the connections between things, people, places, ideas. You never know where you'll find them.most people don't know where to find them or even that there's any point to finding them. Who even looks? Who's got time to look? Whose job is it to look? Ours. Historians. It's part of our job. The more you know, the more you read, the better will be your intuition. You can use your intuition as first order Geiger counter of likelihood, of probability and also for starting new lines of enquiry. But whatever you end up doing for a living, wherever you do it, you'll need intuition and curiosity, add much of it as you can muster. Develop these as an athlete develops muscles and impulses. — Elliot Perlman

What is it about men that make women so lonely? — Elliot Perlman

We like people for their qualities, but we love them for their defects." In writing this line I meant to say that we must not simply "accept" imperfection when it is revealed to us - we must celebrate it. This, I assure you, is the true sign of friendship. — Ron Perlman

I've never been pigeonholed and I've experienced so many different kinds of skin - what man will do and won't do, what you should do and shouldn't do. This is what's exciting about being an actor; where philosophy majors sit in classrooms or write books about human behavior, we're actually acting them out in front of cameras. — Ron Perlman

I expect that everything I do will be not watched or not seen. That way, I'm never disappointed when I become flooded with that reality. — Ron Perlman

I'm kind of one of these guys who wants to play everything once before it's all over. — Ron Perlman

The only way to grab the attention of the audience is originality. We feed ourselves with franchises that's the opposite of what makes our culture multidimensional and interesting. — Ron Perlman

I never direct myself, because I don't like working with me. I would punch me in the mouth if I had to take my direction. — Ron Perlman

Any good thing that happens to someone you love can only be good for you too. — Rhea Perlman

You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That's why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don't feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall. — Itzhak Perlman

The every day activity of slaves reproduces slavery — Fredy Perlman

Really, I was such a late bloomer, I really didn't learn how to be me until I was in my late '40s, which is when I started playing roles that were closer to me. — Ron Perlman

That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise. — Itzhak Perlman

Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left. — Itzhak Perlman

I'll be happy if I can gain even the smallest place inside the literary imagination of U.S. readers. — Elliot Perlman

The things that are celebrated as human decency, true heroism, true self-sacrifice, and with a kind of leadership that was completely iconoclastic during the first half of the twentieth century are nearly forgotten. All of a sudden we started looking inward and becoming obsessed with behavior, idiosyncrasies, human flaws, and all this stuff. Some great accomplishments happened in the second half of the twentieth century, don't get me wrong, but in the process we lost a template of what truly being human looks like. — Ron Perlman

Child prodigy is a curse because you've got all those terrible possibilities. — Itzhak Perlman

He uses you as a weapon against himself and not merely because you did. He sits in his car at traffic lights on his way out sometimes and tries to estimate how many times he has sat here, waiting at these traffic lights on his way somewhere without you, hoping to meet someone with the capacity to consign you to an anecdote, to be eventually confused with others. He thinks of you when the woman lying next to him thinks he's asleep. — Elliot Perlman

What I've learned, more than anything, as a young actor who has been in the business for 10 years, is just to be around guys and girls, like Ron Perlman, Bill Lucking, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Katey Sagal, who have been in this business for a very long time, and to learn what to do and what not to do from them, every day, and to see how they navigate through their Hollywood life. — Theo Rossi

You know you're in love with somebody when you wake up next to them, comfortable despite your breath smelling like the week-old water at the bottom of a vase, when you are terribly excited to see them, to talk to them again, having missed them after all that sleep. — Elliot Perlman

I watched 'The Neighbors' when it first came on, and I thought it was hysterical. And every time I think something just tickles my funny bone, I call my agent and say, 'You know, I like this show. If they're ever looking for somebody, I'd like to work with them.' — Rhea Perlman

For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them. — Itzhak Perlman

[Memory] visits when it is hungry, not when you are. — Elliot Perlman

You can change the circumstances but you can never change man's inner nature. — Ron Perlman

No child should be raised in a system. A system isn't a parent. Even the system knows this, which is why the Children and Family Services Division puts so much effort into finding permanent homes for the kids who are never going to be reunited with their birth parents. — Rhea Perlman

I was working more on a primal, instinctive level. And it just seemed to suit me; it seemed to suit my concentration span, it seemed to suit my personal style of performance, and I have fallen in love with film acting. — Ron Perlman

Some of the great characters that I've played had to be transformational. — Ron Perlman

Every musical phrase has a purpose. It's like talking. If you talk with a particular purpose, people listen to you, but if you just recite, it's not as meaningful. — Itzhak Perlman

Competition can be the most nerve-racking experience. Some people just thrive on it. — Itzhak Perlman

As my name might suggest, I'm Jewish. My grandparents were Polish and Russian Jews who came to Australia in the late 1920s, and had they not, we wouldn't be talking now. — Elliot Perlman

[T]he best historians ... take a thorough knowledge of the evidence of their subject and combine it with a sharp intellect, the warmest understanding of people and the highest imaginative powers. — Elliot Perlman

I love to work with young kids. — Itzhak Perlman

When I was a kid, I loved having a book in my hand. I still do. I wasn't a fast reader, but I was a steady reader. I read all of The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Cherry Ames books. — Rhea Perlman

This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in five or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development. — Itzhak Perlman

Any gifted child can potentially get in real trouble because of the way they are handled. — Itzhak Perlman

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera, the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist, and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise, everything else is a matter of degrees. — Ron Perlman

When I met him, he hadn't eaten for days, and lived in a rathole. But his rifle was clean and he had lots of ammunition. Whenever he heard shooting he ran towards it. If it was workers shooting at priests, state officials, capitalists, or cops, he'd empty his rifle as fast as he could fill it. But if two groups of workers ever shot at each other, he'd risk his life by standing between them and shouting, "When workers kill each other, there is no more reason to live! Kill me from both sides."
-- Luisa Nachalo — Sophia Nachalo

I'm now doing three things: concerts, conducting, and teaching, and they each support each other. I learn to see things from different perspectives and listen with different ears. The most important thing that you need to do is really listen. — Itzhak Perlman

After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over. — Alfred E. Perlman

I don't walk on stage unless I'm playing with a orchestra. But when I play a recital, I'm sort of on a scooter, and I just scoot very quickly on stage, and they're saying, wow, look at this. He's so fast. — Itzhak Perlman

"Striking looking." That's a euphemism if I ever heard one. — Ron Perlman

Same thing with harmonies. If you hear something that harmonically is interesting, express it. So that's what I'm saying about talking the music rather than just playing through. — Itzhak Perlman

Simon and I by then were practicing to be apart, rehearsing together in the same room and often in the same conversation. — Elliot Perlman

Memory is a wilful dog. It won't be summoned or dismissed but it cannot survive without you. It can sustain you or feed on you. It visits when it is hungry, not when you are. It has a schedule all of its own that you can never know. It can capture, corner you or liberate you. It can leave you howling and it can make you smile. — Elliot Perlman

This machine, the wheelchair, I can go all over the place, but you need a place without stairs to get in. — Itzhak Perlman

Somebody who doesn't care if they live or die is the most dangerous human being on earth. — Ron Perlman

The Violin of my dreams. If you wanna play a pianissimo that is almost inaudible and yet it carries through a hall that seats 3,000 people, there's your Strad. — Itzhak Perlman

The most important element of the foster care system is getting kids out of foster care and into a permanent placement so they don't have to spend their entire childhoods in courtrooms, wondering if they will ever have a place to call home. — Rhea Perlman

the pace at which Sean Connery speaks stems from a decision he's made. And every single vowel delivered is with respect for the language. But he delivers it so naturally and with so much humanity that you don't realize that, technically, he is giving a master class in how to deliver a line. — Ron Perlman

There's the ambiguity of human relationships, for instance. A relationship between two people, just like a sequence of words, is ambiguous if it is open to different interpretations. And if two people do have differing views about their relationship - I don't just mean about its state, I mean about its very nature - then that difference can affect the entire course of their lives. — Elliot Perlman

I've always wanted to have my own studio because this is a way for me to finally take all things that I've always dreamt about and actually put them into action. — Ron Perlman

Kids who enter 'adulthood' without any strong attachments to people who know and care about them have a rough road ahead, to say the least. — Rhea Perlman

I've been busy and not busy, and busy is better. I've been busy, but I went through a lot of periods where it was lean for a lot of times. — Ron Perlman

Listen- all that she was then, all that she is now, those gestures, everything I remember but won't or can't articulate anymore, the perfect words that are somehow made imperfect when used to describe her and all that should remain unsaid about her- it is all unsupported by reason. I know that. But that enigmatic calm that attaches itself to people in the presence of reason- it's something from which I haven't been able to take comfort, not reliably, not since her. — Elliot Perlman

I'm just trying to make up for lost times, and I have total awareness that when the work is coming it doesn't mean it's going to continue to come, so I'm taking advantage of this phenomenal period that I'm in now, to its fullest. — Ron Perlman

War, war never changes. — Ron Perlman

So many things can drive you mad as a child, not only music. — Itzhak Perlman

Combine a left-leaning upbringing with a family with direct experience of the Holocaust and someone with aspirations to write and I guess, sooner or later, that person will have a stab at writing something about the Holocaust. — Elliot Perlman

When you're younger, you tend to be reckless about trying to find out who you are and what you can do and should do. But as you get older you become more accepting of yourself, and with that comes greater contentment. — Elliot Perlman

Well, I don't have an agenda. — Ron Perlman

I cannot resist making the observation that some people use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost - more to lean on than for illumination. — Alfred E. Perlman

Living off the grid and being kind of an outlaw brings a dangerous reality. — Ron Perlman

I, for one, am not nearly as engaged when I'm looking at something that's been completely drawn up on a computer that replaces anything that's in real time and real space. It just engages me all the less, rather than all the more. — Ron Perlman

Don't play the way it goes. Play the way it is. And the way it is every time you play it, it's slightly different. Look for something. So that's the challenge not to be bored. — Itzhak Perlman

My family is from Russia and Poland. We never had that thing with the German Jews. — Rhea Perlman

I've had biker clubs reach out to me whenever they knew I was in their city. — Ron Perlman

There is nothing like a fine Italian sound. — Itzhak Perlman

Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie. — Ron Perlman

Almost all of your life is lived by the seat of your pants, one unexpected event crashing into another, with no pattern or reason, and then you finally reach a point, around my age, where you spend more time than ever looking back. Why did this happen? Look where that led? You see the shape of things. — Ron Perlman

I can't really remember a time in my life when I didn't know something about what we call the Holocaust. It was this dark topic that I would know more about when I got older, but which was spoken about in hushed tones. — Elliot Perlman

I don't feel that the conductor has real power. The orchestra has the power, and every member of it knows instantaneously if you're just beating time. — Itzhak Perlman

there is no life free of pain, loss, despair, confusion, violence, and, yes, even death. To make it a goal to think you could ever live a life that avoided all these things is pure folly, and you can only fall short. What there is, however, is the ability to manage one's way through these things so that, in addressing them, you remain as whole as possible, as present as possible, as undaunted as possible. For that is the closest you are ever gonna get to real, real contentment. — Ron Perlman

I'm fully aware that things that resonate and become real hits are the exception to the rule, so much so that I've wired myself for failure. — Ron Perlman

I had an opportunity to be in Frank's [Sinatra] circle, but I couldn't take advantage of it because I couldn't get over how awed I was by him. It was so uncomfortable for me because he meant so much to me, but I just couldn't be myself, so I fled rather than having those great nights hanging out. — Ron Perlman

There's one thing about TV that I really think is true. If you find the right cast and the right writers, and you got some chemistry going, even if a show is taking a little while to find an audience, if you keep it there, that audience will find it. Because that's what happened with 'Cheers.' — Rhea Perlman

I feel as though my criteria are based more on how challenging the role is, it doesn't have to fit into any particular profile, is it something that I've never done before, and is it something that I feel like I can really feel challenged and therefore fully engaged in, and that's when the work gets to be the most fun. — Ron Perlman

It's WA today, Minna," called Orson from across the room, Orson's name for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Orson played second violin with a sloppy serenity, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue, his bowing long and sweeping and beautiful even when out of tune. "If you must make a mistake," he had quoted, "make it a big one." Was it Heifetz who had said it? Perlman? Zukerman maybe? — Patricia MacLachlan

Once the real you emerges and appears unfettered, naked, and completely in touch with the good, the bad, and the ugly, then you really meet yourself. Then all those things take on a different perspective as well. — Ron Perlman