Harry Dean Stanton Quotes
-
I had opportunities to be a lot more successful, but for some reason or other - the way I was particularly genetically wired - I turned down a lot of opportunities.
-
I've worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.
-
I am an actor and this is holding the mirror up to nature, as it were.
-
I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color.
-
I just wasn't psychologically made to get married or, God forbid, be a father.
-
I worked with the best directors - Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.
-
California is full of Mexican culture and Mexican music.
-
I can't stress too much how much Ry Cooder was an influence on me. Having one of the most respected musicians around like my singing really gave me the confidence to do it.
-
I could have made it as a singer, but I went with acting - surrendered to it, in a way.
-
The soul is an illusion.
-
When man began to think he was a separate person with a separate soul, it created a violent situation.
-
You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.
-
For a musician to be good, he has to have humanity and care about the other guy. And as for blues - in a sense, black people have kept this country alive and given us our entire musical heritage.
-
I was trained on the stage, and I can do stage as well as I can do movies, but I prefer films.
-
People know you as an actor, and labels are so comfortable for people. That syndrome is always hard to get past.
-
I can understand why it takes some people a long time to really be a singer. You have to find out, 'Why am I singing? What am I doing this for?' I do it because I enjoy it, and philosophically, music is a catalyst. It's a refining agent.
-
I've had chances to record albums, which I haven't done.
-
Silence is the most powerful state.
-
People kept asking me, 'When are you singing again?' so I kept doing it. It was that simple.
-
I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.
-
What did we play in the Harry Dean Stanton Band? It was old blues and country - all covers. I never wrote anything.
-
I had to decide if I wanted to be a singer or an actor. I was always singing. I thought if I could be an actor, I could do all of it.
-
My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk. My first performance was of a song called My Blue Heaven, which I began singing when I was a year and a half.
-
There is no answer. That's what Buddhism says. The Void, oblivion, no answer. To be in that state is an enlightened state.