Alan Arkin > Quotes

“Either you're growing or you're decaying; there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.”
― Alan Arkin

“Two-thirds of American movies are extensions of commercials — they tell you how to feel and they tell you how to think — rather than letting you figure it out on your own," said Arkin, who has been acting since the 1960s and won the supporting actor Oscar for "Little Miss Sunshine." "Ben treats the audience like adults. He doesn't shove you into endless close-ups, and the music doesn't tell you what's going to happen next, which is something I hate in American movies.”
― Alan Arkin, An Improvised Life: A Memoir: Library Edition

“That's what we're all doing, all the time, whether we know it or not. Whether we like it or not. Creating something on the spur of the moment with the materials at hand. We might just as well let the res tof it go, join the party, and dance our hearts out.”
― Alan Arkin, An Improvised Life: A Memoir

“Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can’t do. And if we don’t grow, we decay. It’s that simple. Nothing in our universe is static.”
― Alan Arkin, An Improvised Life: A Memoir

“I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did”
― Alan Arkin

“So much had been invested in craft, in externalization, in looking for something solid out there that would fill the void, create a sense of flight, of getting out of the oppression of self. We don’t want to do it; we want to be it.”
― Alan Arkin, An Improvised Life: A Memoir