Charles Durning (Charles Edward Durning) Quotes
Of course, I'm not often the top dog, but sometimes it's better not to be top dog, because you last longer. If a movie or play flops, you always blame the lead. They say, 'He couldn't carry it.' They always blame him. But they rarely blame the second or third banana.
Quotes to Explore
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I was a tomboy.
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It makes no difference who or what you are, old or young, black or white, pagan, Jew, or Christian, I want to love you all and be loved by you all, and I mean to have your love.
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If you don't want to get bored with what you're doing, you have to change.
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The team behind 'The Lego Movie' approached me. They wanted to do something extra special for the Academy Award performance of best song nominee 'Everything is Awesome.' They had seen my earlier version of a Lego Oscar statue, and I was happy to take on the challenge.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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As a filmmaker whose first film was made with the DIY tools of digital cinema, I love how the democratization of the filmmaking process and platforms like YouTube enables people to tell stories that in previous generations simply could not be told.
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I'm obviously really opinionated, but as a producer, you don't necessarily want the person you're working with to try to impress you - you want them to just be themselves. Then you can edit or mess around with what they've come up with. But you have to allow the artist that space.
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My happiest moments of growing up in the Bronx were when my mom would bring home a new sports magazine from the candy store. I would jump out of bed and grab it from her. Then I'd rip the front cover right off and tape it to my bedroom wall.
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I may discuss love, and I don't mind if two men fall in love, fine. Two women, fine. But I flinch when I think of two Jewish women getting together and having a child because the idea of having two Jewish mothers makes my head explode. I have one; I couldn't handle two.
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I went to boarding school from the age of eight - first to prep school, then to Eton. One thing that kind of education teaches you is community living: there's little retreat. That's why people come out of it and talk about lifelong friendships forged in the furnace.
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I do not cook.
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Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, 'Casino Royale' dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before I might have despaired.
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Portraying Pocahontas' story well was important to me because she was a real person and these were real events in her life.
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I don't think the deficit of the country is a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. I think it's a country issue. I don't think worrying about the reindustrialization of America is a Republican or Democratic issue.
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I've found that you don't need to wear a necktie if you can hit.
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The death of Churchill at 90 was one of those watershed moments in which the obituary rises to a special calling beyond the sharing of remembered times. It gave an older generation a rare opportunity to explain something of itself to its children.
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I now understand how varied the world of cultivated rice is; that rice can play the lead or be a sidekick; that brown rice is as valuable as white; and that short-grain rice is the bee's knees.
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My dominant feeling every day is one of great ignorance.
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I like playing off strong actors, whether it's Benedict Cumberbatch or Dominic Cooper. Also I'm a hopeless romantic, so I'm fascinated by relationships.
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I will say that my days are spent solitary and somewhat lost in thought, and every single time I inadvertently wear my shirt inside out in public, I bump into my sister-in-law at the grocery store.
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The prophesying business is like writing fugues; it is fatal to every one save the man of absolute genius.
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You know how in every heist movie they get past the security cameras that show the hallway leading to the diamonds by jamming the screens with a fake signal of everything looking safe and quiet? Usually a guard coughs so they don't notice the blip from switching to the bogus feed.
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I suppose in the end it's almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things. What's harder - what's much, much harder - is to accept what you actually did do.
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Of course, I'm not often the top dog, but sometimes it's better not to be top dog, because you last longer. If a movie or play flops, you always blame the lead. They say, 'He couldn't carry it.' They always blame him. But they rarely blame the second or third banana.
