Clint Eastwood Quotes

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.

- Clint Eastwood

There's a rebel lying deep in my soul.

- Clint Eastwood

People love westerns worldwide. There's something fantasy-like about an individual fighting the elements. Or even bad guys and the elements. It's a simpler time. There's no organized laws and stuff.

- Clint Eastwood

My wife used to be an anchorwoman in Arizona, so she knew John McCain, and she liked him, and I kinda liked him.

- Clint Eastwood

My uncle played rugby, and my dad played football, and they used to argue which game was the roughest - and everybody agreed rugby was. It's a great team sport, and to be successful, every person has to play in the same level.

- Clint Eastwood

When I was growing up, I wasn't an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

- Clint Eastwood

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn't done in life. They wish they hadn't kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

- Clint Eastwood

The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach.

- Clint Eastwood

The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits.

- Clint Eastwood

Plagiarism is always the biggest thing in Hollywood.

- Clint Eastwood

Everybody is idealistic when you're a kid.

- Clint Eastwood

I read every book there was on jazz, about the original players - King Oliver, Buddy Bolden and all those groups. At one time I was fairly well schooled in that... I could tell you who played where and when, historically, way before my time.

- Clint Eastwood

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

- Clint Eastwood

I don't think I've met anyone with a stronger work ethic than Ray Charles.

- Clint Eastwood

Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

- Clint Eastwood

Actors know what actors are insecure about - and they're all insecure.

- Clint Eastwood

I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.

- Clint Eastwood

A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama.

- Clint Eastwood

President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.

- Clint Eastwood

I played a little basketball. Some football in junior high.

- Clint Eastwood

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

- Clint Eastwood

I tend to believe that audiences are relatively well-balanced people.

- Clint Eastwood

I have been trying to retire to the back of the camera for quite a few years, and in 1970, when I first started directing, I said, 'If I could pull this off, I can some day move to the back of the camera and stay there.'

- Clint Eastwood

Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.

- Clint Eastwood

Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can't see any difference between take one and take 20.

- Clint Eastwood

You are always hoping that movie audiences are interested in characters and interested in story values rather than just mindless special effects. But you never know.

- Clint Eastwood

If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

- Clint Eastwood

Politicians love regulating. That's part of the whole power structure.

- Clint Eastwood

I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go... It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, 'Wait a second? Didn't we just get through with that?'

- Clint Eastwood

I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21 because he promised to get us out of the Korean War.

- Clint Eastwood

I was drafted during the Korean War.

- Clint Eastwood

The U.S. military was segregated 'til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated.

- Clint Eastwood

I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.

- Clint Eastwood

I liked Vittorio De Sica a lot, and I got to work with him once in a segment movie. He was a great director. He was a very charismatic character and a guy I watched a lot when he was directing.

- Clint Eastwood

I never sympathise with the accused unless there's a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don't ever sympathise with the criminal.

- Clint Eastwood

Society is at odds with itself.

- Clint Eastwood

Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.

- Clint Eastwood

My dad was a big admirer of Sergeant York stories from the First World War.

- Clint Eastwood

You know when you're young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they're trying to be old men and they have no idea what that's like? It's just that stupid the other way around.

- Clint Eastwood

At the major studios, you see people wanting to remake a TV series, wanting to make a sequel.

- Clint Eastwood

I've always felt that if I examine myself too much, I'll find out what I know and don't know, and I'll burst the bubble. I've gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I'd rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

- Clint Eastwood

I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair.

- Clint Eastwood

I just think it is important that you realize, that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

- Clint Eastwood

Nobody looks like they did when they were 20, so why not take advantage of the fact that you're changing, emotionally as well as physically?

- Clint Eastwood

I think Pebble Beach is kind of a unique place on the planet.

- Clint Eastwood

You have to feel confident. If you don't, then you're going to be hesitant and defensive, and there'll be a lot of things working against you.

- Clint Eastwood

I always thought of myself as a character actor. I never thought of myself as a leading man.

- Clint Eastwood

I was always respectful of people who were deeply religious because I always felt that if they gave themselves to it, then it had to be important to them. But if you can go through life without it, that's OK, too. It's whatever suits you.

- Clint Eastwood

I don't like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I'd like to see somebody who's going in the office. In fact, I'd like to not see them because that way you'd be sure that they'd be working.

- Clint Eastwood

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

- Clint Eastwood

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don't have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I'm sure he didn't call everybody jerks.

- Clint Eastwood

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it's almost like we're living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it's like a big reality show.

- Clint Eastwood

Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that's what everybody needs to know.

- Clint Eastwood

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

- Clint Eastwood

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

- Clint Eastwood

There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.

- Clint Eastwood

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

- Clint Eastwood

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

- Clint Eastwood

Let's put it this way: there wouldn't be much point in me attending a high-school reunion now because there wouldn't be anybody there. We'd struggle to raise a quorum.

- Clint Eastwood

I do believe in the energy and the productivity of the American business world.

- Clint Eastwood

I love big business!

- Clint Eastwood

It's always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

- Clint Eastwood

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.

- Clint Eastwood

'Mystic River' just smelled interesting to me. So I read it and liked it right away. Even the dialogue in it was great.

- Clint Eastwood

'Unforgiven' is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, 'This is great, but I'd like to do this when I'm older.' So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

- Clint Eastwood

If you're really satisfied with your position on something, you just say, 'Hey;' you just very calmly present something.

- Clint Eastwood

In my career as a director, there's always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: 'What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?' At that time you have to say: 'OK, forget that and just go ahead.'

- Clint Eastwood

Society has made us believe you should look like an 18-year-old model all your life.

- Clint Eastwood

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I'd eventually run out of steam on that, and that would've been the end of it.

- Clint Eastwood

In school, I could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey.

- Clint Eastwood

When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

- Clint Eastwood

The fact is, violence is not only not a beautiful thing, but it's also very painful and not without consequences for the perpetrator as well as the victim.

- Clint Eastwood

In 'Changeling,' I tried to show something you'd never see nowadays - a kid sitting and looking at the radio. Just sitting in front of the radio and listening. Your mind does the rest.

- Clint Eastwood

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

- Clint Eastwood

Just try not to ingest a lot of fats, and just try to eat carefully.

- Clint Eastwood

Hoover was a patriot in his heart, but he definitely exceeded his power.

- Clint Eastwood

I want the troops from Great Britain and the U.S. to be successful, but by the same token, Afghanistan has always been a screw-up.

- Clint Eastwood

I love stories about women.

- Clint Eastwood

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.

- Clint Eastwood

The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your life, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there's nothing really to talk about.

- Clint Eastwood

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.

- Clint Eastwood

There are certain age limits on police officers. They'd have retired me out at 65.

- Clint Eastwood

I will never win an Oscar, and do you know why? First of all, because I'm not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money for all those old farts in the Academy.

- Clint Eastwood

When you work with kids, especially, you want to be ready to turn the camera on at a moment's notice.

- Clint Eastwood

Governor Romney has a great business background. He is extremely well educated. He has several degrees from Harvard, including, you know, business and including a law degree.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more.

- Clint Eastwood

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

- Clint Eastwood

Movies were invented for Jimmy Cagney, and he was invented for the movies. A perfect match.

- Clint Eastwood

I became a Republican in 1951, the first year I could vote.

- Clint Eastwood

Drama usually has some sort of intense conflict.

- Clint Eastwood

Yes, I'm always - I'm always surprised when you make a film and you live with it a while and you put it out, you never dream that anybody is ever going to want to really see it.

- Clint Eastwood

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

- Clint Eastwood

Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff.

- Clint Eastwood

I guess any movie actor can become a role model for audiences out there who enjoy him.

- Clint Eastwood

Fate pulls you in different directions.

- Clint Eastwood

There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.

- Clint Eastwood

Every story has its demands.

- Clint Eastwood

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don't know what that is; I don't think too much about that.

- Clint Eastwood

You hear about actors being late and all that sort of stuff, but you never find that with an actor who's directed, because an actor who's directed understands all the problems your production is going through.

- Clint Eastwood

As long as somebody finances you, can make a film and get it seen any place and in any language; then, hopefully, it's a success.

- Clint Eastwood

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not a chick-flick enthusiast.

- Clint Eastwood

Whether you like it or not, you're forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don't fear death, I'm a fatalist. I believe when it's your time, that's it. It's the hand you're dealt.

- Clint Eastwood

On 'Mystic River,' I had to cut my salary and everyone else's to get it made.

- Clint Eastwood

I probably would have retired years ago if I hadn't found interesting things to do.

- Clint Eastwood

It's a very confusing era that we're in.

- Clint Eastwood

I think 'Dirty Harry' was probably sensitive toward the victims of violent crime.

- Clint Eastwood

Actors know, with me they aren't going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

- Clint Eastwood

Alfred Hitchcock once told me, when I was analyzing a lot of things about his pictures, 'Clint, you must remember, it's only a movie.'

- Clint Eastwood

In the Bay Area, there was a resurgence of Dixieland jazz in the '40s - there was the Frisco Jazz Band, and Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band.

- Clint Eastwood

Men must know their limitations.

- Clint Eastwood

The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

- Clint Eastwood

And I think it's that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane. Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that.

- Clint Eastwood

When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

- Clint Eastwood

My dad was fiscally conservative, and I was influenced by that. He didn't believe in spending more than you had because it gets you into trouble.

- Clint Eastwood

The stronger the participation of the female characters, the better the movie. They knew that in the old days, when women stars were equally as important as men.

- Clint Eastwood

I guess I'm living in the present more than the past.

- Clint Eastwood

A lot of dumb pictures have made a lot of money, but that doesn't mean they're going to be anything cinema students will revel over in the future.

- Clint Eastwood

If you consider film an art form, as some people do, then the Western would be a truly American art form, much as jazz is.

- Clint Eastwood

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.

- Clint Eastwood

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less.

- Clint Eastwood

There's no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don't try to adapt it, make it commercial.

- Clint Eastwood

There has to be something in every role that interests you.

- Clint Eastwood

I knew Billy Wilder socially and would have loved to work with him.

- Clint Eastwood

I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not one of these guys who sits around saying, 'Gee, I mean, the person had a strange childhood and that's why he's doing this horrible thing. Poor Jeffrey Dahmer. He's just had a bad childhood and that's why he's eating people.' Wait a second! This person should be removed from the planet.

- Clint Eastwood

Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

- Clint Eastwood

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

- Clint Eastwood

I've had moments when I've thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there's some vibration, some connection.

- Clint Eastwood

Crimes against children are the most heinous crime. That, for me, would be a reason for capital punishment because children are innocent and need the guidance of an adult society.

- Clint Eastwood

When you listen to Ray Charles, there's never any doubt whose voice that is.

- Clint Eastwood

You can't stop everything from happening. But we've gotten to a point where we're certainly trying. If a car doesn't have four hundred air bags in it, then it's no good.

- Clint Eastwood

As you get older, you're not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn't running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing.

- Clint Eastwood

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

- Clint Eastwood

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer.

- Clint Eastwood

Comedy isn't necessarily all dialogue. Think of Buster Keaton: the poker face and all this chaos going on all around him. Sometimes it's a question of timing, of the proper rhythm.

- Clint Eastwood

They've got this crazy actor who's 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they're probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

- Clint Eastwood

Everybody accuses me of moving fast when I direct a picture. I don't move fast, but I just keep moving.

- Clint Eastwood

I've always been fascinated with the stealing of innocence. It's the most heinous crime, and certainly a capital crime if there ever was one.

- Clint Eastwood

When I was born, the economy wasn't in a great state; it was the Depression, and my father had to be quick to try and find work.

- Clint Eastwood

I've always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves.

- Clint Eastwood

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove - disapprove of their point of view.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I've always liked the Buddhist religion. When I've been to Japan, I've been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.

- Clint Eastwood

In 'Gran Torino,' I play a guy who's racially offensive. But he learned. It shows that you're never too old to learn and embrace people that you don't understand to begin with. It seems like nobody else got that message, I guess.

- Clint Eastwood

I still work out on a daily basis.

- Clint Eastwood

I am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama.

- Clint Eastwood

There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't. You just do the best you can.

- Clint Eastwood

I tried being reasonable, I didn't like it.

- Clint Eastwood

I don't really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

- Clint Eastwood

I loved the fact that Obama is multi-racial. I thought that was terrific, as my wife is the same racial make-up.

- Clint Eastwood

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

- Clint Eastwood

We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has.

- Clint Eastwood

I like working. That's when I'm feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

- Clint Eastwood

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that's always nice. And if they don't like them, then too bad.

- Clint Eastwood

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don't have a toy, they'll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.

- Clint Eastwood

I've had no problem harnessing anger.

- Clint Eastwood

I played characters with villainous aspect. But out-and-out villain? No.

- Clint Eastwood

I don't mind telling a dark side.

- Clint Eastwood

You should never give up your inner self.

- Clint Eastwood

When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like 'Bird,' I use 90% black people.

- Clint Eastwood

I've taken advantage of a few breaks that came along and moved along with them.

- Clint Eastwood

Prime time for men is, say, 35 to 45. Then they level off and fall off.

- Clint Eastwood

My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I'd play 'em over and over.

- Clint Eastwood

If somebody's dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they're going to have to take what they get.

- Clint Eastwood

Man becomes his most creative during war.

- Clint Eastwood

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don't want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you're not performing at your best.

- Clint Eastwood

If I'd had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

- Clint Eastwood

The craving for information is so huge now, and it can be marketed at such a rapid rate.

- Clint Eastwood

Nowadays, politically, everybody is promising everything. That's the only way you can get elected.

- Clint Eastwood

My grandfather lived to be late 90s on one side and on the other side, 70s or something. And my father died young, at 63. But he didn't take very good care of himself.

- Clint Eastwood

Our modern society - especially in the West, and especially now - reveres youth.

- Clint Eastwood

If you're doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don't know what was going on in the person's mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him.

- Clint Eastwood

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.

- Clint Eastwood

I do believe in self-help.

- Clint Eastwood

I like Italian movies. I was frequently there in the '60s, in Rome and the vicinity. It was a great period in life. I was very influenced by their stuff.

- Clint Eastwood

I'd always tried to resist playing the supervirility thing. I liked showing the vulnerability of age.

- Clint Eastwood

We boil at different degrees.

- Clint Eastwood

You make a movie, and if somebody reads something into it, then great, more power to him.

- Clint Eastwood

When I was a kid, I thought movies just came from air. I thought they just appeared.

- Clint Eastwood

Winning the election is a good-news, bad-news kind of thing. Okay, now you're the mayor. The bad news is, now you're the mayor.

- Clint Eastwood

I have worked ever since I was 13.

- Clint Eastwood

I guess maybe when you get past 70, other people start asking you how you feel.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not really a Hollywood person. Not that I don't like L.A., but I'm just a Northern California guy.

- Clint Eastwood

In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don't try to play younger than I really am.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm just a kid - I've got a lot of stuff to do yet.

- Clint Eastwood

I haven't been very active in politics.

- Clint Eastwood

When you're young, you're very reckless. Then you get conservative. Then you get reckless again.

- Clint Eastwood

I think everybody has something that they've been obsessed about in their lifetime.

- Clint Eastwood

I like a drama.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm not afraid to look bad on the screen.

- Clint Eastwood

A war is a horrible thing, but it's also a unifier of countries.

- Clint Eastwood

When I see a story, I ask: is this something I'd like to be in? Is this something I'd like to see? And if I'd like to see it, would I like to tell it?

- Clint Eastwood

I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

- Clint Eastwood

The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of a lot of animals.

- Clint Eastwood

It must be the Brit in me, because I like animals.

- Clint Eastwood

There are two kinds of people in this world. 'I' people and 'we' people. I've always tried to be a 'we' person.

- Clint Eastwood

It's always fun to talk about jazz.

- Clint Eastwood

Every movie I make teaches me something. That's why I keep making them.

- Clint Eastwood

What you put into life is what you get out of it.

- Clint Eastwood

I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that.

- Clint Eastwood

My mother always told me it wasn't polite to ask what people make.

- Clint Eastwood

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

- Clint Eastwood

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself.

- Clint Eastwood

It would be great to be 105 and still making films.

- Clint Eastwood

Why am I a star? It can't be because of looks.

- Clint Eastwood

I just don't like killing creatures.

- Clint Eastwood

I'm a mentor to anybody who's interested.

- Clint Eastwood

If you think it's going to rain, it will.

- Clint Eastwood

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

- Clint Eastwood