Harry Dean Stanton Quotes
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I watch television. Game shows - I hate the hosts and the people on them, and I love the questions and the answers.
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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.
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I know I've got the ability to bring a sense of menace to the screen. I have that specific competence, and it's generally kept me working.
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I just wasn't psychologically made to get married or, God forbid, be a father.
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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.
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The soul is an illusion.
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I hated being typecast in those roles. It was personally limiting, only playing stereotyped heavies. But I got those roles because I was angry, because that's what I projected. I was angry at my mother and father because they didn't get along, angry at the church. On top of that, I had an extreme lack of self-confidence.
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I don't blame anyone but myself for the kind of parts I got. To blame external circumstances is absolute folly.
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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.
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People know you as an actor, and labels are so comfortable for people. That syndrome is always hard to get past.
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I worked with the best directors - Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.
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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.
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California is full of Mexican culture and Mexican music.
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The void, the concept of nothingness, is terrifying to most people on the planet. And I get anxiety attacks myself. I know the fear of that void. You have to learn to die before you die. You give up, surrender to the void, to nothingness.
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I was trained on the stage, and I can do stage as well as I can do movies, but I prefer films.
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I could have made it as a singer, but I went with acting - surrendered to it, in a way.
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Paris, Texas is the first film that I've totally cared about, the first movie I totally wanted to do - and that after 27 years that I considered my prison term.
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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.
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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.
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What did we play in the Harry Dean Stanton Band? It was old blues and country - all covers. I never wrote anything.
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People kept asking me, 'When are you singing again?' so I kept doing it. It was that simple.
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I play myself all the time, on camera and off. What else can I do?
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When man began to think he was a separate person with a separate soul, it created a violent situation.
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There is no answer. That's what Buddhism says. The Void, oblivion, no answer. To be in that state is an enlightened state.