Famous Marlon Brando Quotes
New York Times (July 2, 2004)
Context: When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: 'God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don't do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.' So I really don't think in the long sense.
“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.”
Said in 1960, quoted in Marlon Brando, Ch. 11 (1974, rev. 1989), by David Shipman.
Marlon Brando Quotes about life
“Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life.”
Marlon Brando: The Only Contender, Gary Carey (1985), Ch.13
At a press conference for The Young Lions in Berlin; republished in Marlon Brando, Portraits and Film Stills 1946-1995 (1996)
Source: Songs My Mother Taught Me
Introduction to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler (1988)
Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
Context: I have always considered my life a private affair and the business of no one beyond my family and those I love. Except for moral and political issues that aroused in me a desire to speak out, I have done my utmost throughout my life, for the sake of my children and myself, to remain silent … But now, in my seventieth year, I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.
Marlon Brando Quotes about people
Speech for the Academy Awards protesting the treatment of American Indians, written by Brando, as it appeared in the New York Times (March 30, 1973)
As stated to Gary Carey in Brando's 1976 biography The Only Contender
Marlon Brando Quotes
1994 statement, as quoted in Kosher Sex : A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy (2000) by Shmuley Boteach
Speaking of his performance in On the Waterfront (1954). Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
"If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don't know what it is."- Eli Kazan on Brando's performance in On the Waterfront, published in Marlon Brando, Portraits and Film Stills 1946-1995 (1996)
“An actor's a guy, who if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening.”
The Observer (1956)
Rolling Stone Issue No. 213 (May 20, 1976) on Elia Kazan
New York Times (July 2, 2004)
“The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.”
Marlon Brando: The Only Contender, Gary Carey (1985), Ch.13
Stated to Ashraf Pahlavi of Iran, as quoted in Faces in a Mirror (1980) by Ashraf Pahlavi, p. 129
Rolling Stone Issue No. 213 (May 20, 1976) on Charlie Chaplin
“Bertolucci is extraordinary in his ability to perceive, he's a poet…he is very easy to work for.”
Rolling Stone Issue No. 213 (May 20, 1976) on Bernardo Bertolucci.
Speech for the Academy Awards written by Brando as it appeared in the New York Times (March 30, 1973)
Speaking about the film The Wild One (1953) in Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
“It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek.”
Introduction to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler (1988)
New York Times (July 2, 2004)
Marlon Brando, Portraits and Film Stills 1946-1995 (1996) Speaking about the film The Wild One (1953).
