A biography for Orson Beanhasn’t been written yet.
“My father was an odd stick. He was a member of MENSA and he was a uniformed yard cop for the Harvard police.”
“Possessions can possess you. Even a lawn can possess you. It makes you buy a garden hose. Which makes you water. Which cuts into time you might be happier spending some other way.”
“I don't expect to be another Walt Disney, but I do get a terrific bang out of being able to say things with pictures. Maybe that means something deep and profound about me - but I doubt it.”
“In New Jersey, judges have ruled that a same-sex couple or a single person applying to adopt must be given the same place in line as a married man and woman. I think that's bad for kids. This makes me homophobic? I'm in show business. Half the people in my life are gay.”
“I felt only a conservative president could bring peace in Vietnam 'cause he wouldn't be accused of being soft on communism.”
“I never thought that I couldn't do what I set out to do. It wasn't from arrogance; it was from ignorance.”
“I adored my mother. She was beautiful, smart, sexy and funny.”
“I was blacklisted and overnight my TV appearances dried up. Ed Sullivan called to cancel my appearance and said he'd help me when he could, and a year later he did. Only a few wackos wanted the blacklist. It was a protection racket.”
“I think God loves to hear little kids laugh at fart jokes. He didn't just make sunsets and bluebirds, He made hot babes. And dirty old men like me. That's the modest message I've set out to tell the world: you don't have to be Ned Flanders to be a Christian.”
“Most municipalities grow up around commerce; there's a harbor, or the train stops there. Venice, CA was founded for fun.”
“When I was a kid, FDR on the radio said, 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' We should be afraid of fear, or at least of acting out of it.”
“I'm thankful I've learned to embrace insecurity, not just to tolerate it. Life is more fun that way, and I'm thankful for that, too.”
“Back in the fifties (the nineteen fifties, not the eighteen fifties) I did some writing for Mad Magazine, along with my friend Ernie Kovaks and a pair of comics named Bob and Ray.”
“San Francisco is a city; L.A. is a collection of suburbs that have very little in common with one another.”
“The people who get bored and want to get out of a long-run aren't the people who actually like to act.”
“I'd lived through World War II and hadn't been able to wait to join the army as soon as I turned 18.”
“Cecil B. DeMille worshipped the almighty buck.”
“One night in a club in Boston, I tried the name Roger Duck. No laughs. The next night, I tried Orson Bean, putting together a pompous first name and a silly second name. I got laughs, so I decided to keep it.”
“I'm greedy for experience. I keep finding new things.”
“I don't spend my life making money to spend tomorrow, or to acquire possessions.”