Sterling Hayden

“There's nothing wrong with being an actor, if that's what a man wants. But there's everything wrong with achieving an exalted status, simply because one photographs well and is able to handle dialogue put in one's mouth by others.”

“I don't call myself a writer, much as I'd love to be. An author, maybe - the novel 'Voyage' made $870,000. Writer, no. Nor am I an actor. I was never on the stage.”

“I live and work for the pure enjoyment of being alive.”

“I was surprised when they sent me to Hollywood, Then I thought as soon as they discovered my 14 fathom greenness, I'd be out on my ear. But everything kept going.”

“Actually, I wish I did nothing but write. Acting takes a lot of heat off of me monetarily but it puts a lot of beat on me emotionally.”

“The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked with dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.”

“I've got a fetish about motors on sail boats. Sailboats were meant to sail.”

“Only when a film comes along that I really believe in like this one will I turn to acting.”

“I'm an alcoholic.”

“John Brown was one of my longtime heroes, and it was with no little amount of temerity that I accepted the role. There are some things I am hesitant about, and playing a hero of mine is one of them.”

“I feel sometimes as though I've never grown up. And that's great, because it means there are still possibilities. Nothing's free. You pay for whatever you get. But that's OK, because you can't be cheated.”

“I ran away to sea. I know that only happens in fiction. But it's what I did.”

“The years thunder by.The dreams of youth grow dimwhere they liecaked in dust on the shelves of patience.Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.Where, then lies the answer?In choice.Which shall it be:Bankruptcy of Purseor Bankruptcy of Life?”

“You can measure a man's capacity by the depth of his mistakes.”

“Tahiti is now completely occupied by materialistic ideas and I think it is wrong.”

“I was navigator on the Gloucester schooner 'Gertrude L. Thebaud' in the International Fisherman's race. That's a big thing in New England - the race, I mean. A Boston newspaper man covered it, and saw me on board. For a long time I wished he hadn't! He wrote a piece saying I ought to be in motion pictures.”

“For us to support the liquidation of a simple life in a large part of the world is not a particularly attractive prospect.”

“Sooner or later a man has simply got to do what he thinks is right, no matter what other people, or the courts, or his friends, or his enemies, or God himself may tell him.”

“The number of fights in movies is haywire.”

“I've been offered the role of Franklin Roosevelt, and I wouldn't presume to undertake it.”