Peter Dinklage Quotes

Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.

- Peter Dinklage

I would love to play Richard III.

- Peter Dinklage

I feel as much of a stud as... I can't come up with a metaphor. That's how lacking in studliness I am.

- Peter Dinklage

I like animals, all animals. I wouldn't hurt a cat or a dog - or a chicken or a cow. And I wouldn't ask someone else to hurt them for me. That's why I'm a vegetarian.

- Peter Dinklage

I think everybody goes through changes, and the same should be said for fictional characters, especially ones that you follow on television.

- Peter Dinklage

A lot of parts written for people of my size, dwarfs, are either foolish idiots or, like, these sages that are all-knowing, and they're very, sort of, come-to-them-for-answers.

- Peter Dinklage

Anything that opens up people's perceptions a bit is good.

- Peter Dinklage

I never know where women are coming from.

- Peter Dinklage

There are a lot of directors out there who are very specific, visual craftsmen, and while I have the utmost respect for that, they don't really communicate with the actors.

- Peter Dinklage

I think a lot of great male comic actors are introspective, quiet personalities, which I really admire. But they are really able to turn it up when the camera's on.

- Peter Dinklage

It's a shame how a lot of actors use theater as a stepping stone to film and television work; I think it shouldn't be treated that way. Maybe it's narcissism or something. I think we should always go back to it. I try and do a play a year, and I think that's really helped me.

- Peter Dinklage

I dress and eat like a fifth-grader, basically. I like sandwiches and cereal and hooded sweatshirts.

- Peter Dinklage

My favourite superhero? I have a soft spot for Batman, because he doesn't have any super powers - he's just a person. And he's pretty dark.

- Peter Dinklage

I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing that made me more accepting of who I am.

- Peter Dinklage

Anybody who was in 'The Godfather' is a tough guy.

- Peter Dinklage

Call me a midget, but just be real. I am all for correct terms, but please don't tiptoe around feelings. Don't be too careful, because that shuts you off from people.

- Peter Dinklage

I saw a report on the news: 'Peter Dinklage tweeted... ' What? You know, I don't need any of that stuff. I got an email account; that's all I need.

- Peter Dinklage

I was opposed to doing TV for a long time because I thought the quality of writing wasn't very strong, as opposed to film, but there's been a shift in term of the quality of scripts. HBO has attracted a tremendous amount of great writing talent.

- Peter Dinklage

Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the Bogart days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.

- Peter Dinklage

I never was a big comic book fan. Obviously I'd heard them growing up from my friends who did read them, but I never was a big comic book reader.

- Peter Dinklage

I have a friend - not a dwarf - who's an alchemist of sorts. He concocted a men's cologne... He gave me a bottle as a gift. I was thinking we should totally put this on the market. You know how Jessica Simpson and Beyonce have signature perfumes and make a mint? I'm thinking this cologne could be my ticket to fortune.

- Peter Dinklage

My mother was an elementary school teacher for 35 years and taught at the Nixon School in New Jersey. I was raised as a very liberal Democrat, and she was protesting Nixon when he was in office.

- Peter Dinklage

You'd be surprised how condescending people can be.

- Peter Dinklage

Fantasy novels, I don't really gravitate to that part of the bookstore.

- Peter Dinklage

I was a sullen kid who smoked cigarettes and wore black every day, and I went to a school that was lacrosse players and Izods.

- Peter Dinklage

My brother, who's a violinist now, was the real ham, the real performer of the family. His passion for the violin is the only thing that kept him from being an actor.

- Peter Dinklage

I've felt like an outsider. I've had to struggle.

- Peter Dinklage

I'm on 'Game Of Thrones,' and every time we have someone new coming on our show, we welcome them with open arms and get revitalised by this new presence. Then we kill them off very quickly.

- Peter Dinklage

I often don't see what I've done, or I cringe when I watch myself.

- Peter Dinklage

We, as Americans, at least - I mean, I love my country - but we're so self-righteous sometimes, in terms of, like, our nationality, our country. But we're people from somewhere else; the true 'Americans' are the original peoples. It's funny, but we're a very territorial species.

- Peter Dinklage

Maybe everyone is a little too reassuring that things are going to be OK to college graduates. It gives them a false sort of security.

- Peter Dinklage

The greatest preparation for a TV show is to already have one season behind you.

- Peter Dinklage

I was once part of a Christmas cabaret. I sang 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.' I tap-danced. I had a ten-gallon hat. It was quite absurd.

- Peter Dinklage

What I really want is to play the romantic lead and get the girl.

- Peter Dinklage

I just don't like boring myself. That's one of the main reasons I did 'Ice Age' - because I'd never done something like this before.

- Peter Dinklage

It's amazing what they can do with animation nowadays. It's really beautiful. The 3D stuff is out of hand.

- Peter Dinklage

'Game of Thrones' fans are the nicest people ever, but a thousand nice people coming at me gives me claustrophobia.

- Peter Dinklage

As an adolescent, I was bitter and angry, and I definitely put up these walls.

- Peter Dinklage

I spend my nights just sitting and reading a book and drinking my tea and walking my dog. That's about as exciting as my life gets.

- Peter Dinklage

Jen Lawrence is quite a fan of 'Game of Thrones.'

- Peter Dinklage

That's one of the things about theater vs. film - with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?

- Peter Dinklage

'Star Wars' or 'The Lord of the Rings' deal with great big Joseph Campbell-style myths, good and evil.

- Peter Dinklage

People's personalities get tweaked at weddings.

- Peter Dinklage

I think with a lot of filmmakers, their first film is their best film because they had to think on their feet and solve problems with ingenuity.

- Peter Dinklage

Dwarves are still the butt of jokes. It's one of the last bastions of acceptable prejudice.

- Peter Dinklage

Even 'Lord of the Rings' had dwarf-tossing jokes in it. It's like, 'Really?'

- Peter Dinklage

Sometimes, when the material is really good, you put expectations on yourself to make it the best possible show. You're not just serving up the regular hash and doing your job and going home.

- Peter Dinklage

When people are infected by my charm, they don't see my size. My piercing deep blue eyes are distracting.

- Peter Dinklage

I like playing the guy on the sidelines. They have more fun.

- Peter Dinklage

'Lassie' was amazing. I didn't have any scenes with humans. There's a couple little bits, here or there, but mainly just me and my horse and a couple of dogs in the Isle of Man.

- Peter Dinklage

I have a big cynical side to me.

- Peter Dinklage

I have a need to always make people laugh. I have a desperate need. I love a great sense of humor. The people I sort of surround myself with have that.

- Peter Dinklage

Women respond to comfort and a sense of humor. I was always able to make them laugh, so that helps a lot.

- Peter Dinklage

It is hard working with animals, I've got to say.

- Peter Dinklage

It was hard doing scenes with Bobby Cannavale because I would break up laughing because he's so funny.

- Peter Dinklage

We're not environmentally doing very good things to this planet, and we might not be around too long.

- Peter Dinklage

I should call people back more readily. I'm not the best friend sometimes in terms of that. I do follow that white balloon and get distracted a lot.

- Peter Dinklage

If I was born 400 years ago instead of now, I wouldn't have the life I have. There were freak shows, and there was horrible discrimination.

- Peter Dinklage

I think successful movies that are based on books are their own thing. I think if you're too faithful, word by word, character trait to character trait, it can hurt the movie.

- Peter Dinklage

People have the strangest ideas about dwarves.

- Peter Dinklage

'Game of Thrones' is an amazing show, and I have no problem speaking of the virtues of HBO.

- Peter Dinklage

Each year, billions of animals are subjected to cruelty on factory farms, feed lots, and slaughterhouses. The brutality that these animals endure would be grounds for felony cruelty charges if inflicted upon our cats and dogs.

- Peter Dinklage

The reason I like 'Breaking Bad,' which is still probably my favorite show, is Walter White. You watch him transform, and that's so fascinating. And I think. a lot of TV shows that aren't successful, it's because the characters become stagnant.

- Peter Dinklage

Maybe in my 20s I was a little more lively. But I'm done with that.

- Peter Dinklage

I am this guy who's four and a half feet tall, but my life doesn't constantly address it.

- Peter Dinklage

Women on the whole are often not as shallow as men are. They can be, but they cut through things a little more easily than men do in terms of that superficial stuff.

- Peter Dinklage

I think my mom drove by a nuclear power plant when she was pregnant. But I wouldn't be in 'The Station Agent' if she hadn't.

- Peter Dinklage

I think more money can be very detrimental to movies and TV because things get solved economically rather than creatively, and that's never a good solution.

- Peter Dinklage

So I won't say I'm lucky. I'm fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.

- Peter Dinklage

Since I've joined 'Game of Thrones,' it's been such a pleasure.

- Peter Dinklage

There are wars being fought! Who cares what I'm doing on a Saturday night? I'm not even a celebrity.

- Peter Dinklage

I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.

- Peter Dinklage

I feel like life is much greater than a hero or a villain: there's good people that sometimes make mistakes.

- Peter Dinklage

I knew David Benioff a bit socially. I knew his wife, Amanda Peet. He's a smart guy, so I always sought him out at dinner parties.

- Peter Dinklage

With a lot of shows, what you'll see happen is they start off really well, and they're very original, but they become sort of a version of themselves. They stand outside the show... they become a cliche of the show they once were. That's the whole 'jumping the shark' thing.

- Peter Dinklage

I never lived in an abandoned railroad station.

- Peter Dinklage

Will Ferrell is just about the nicest guy - anyone can tell you that.

- Peter Dinklage

Bad guys are complicated characters. It's always fun to play them. You get away with a lot more. You don't have a heroic code you have to live by.

- Peter Dinklage

A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.

- Peter Dinklage

There's a thing at the Museum of Natural History in New York, where I live: they have a stairwell where you follow the beginning and the course of this planet, and it's a very long stairwell, and you follow, and you follow, and then you reach the top, and we're, like, half a step on the stairwell - the timeline for us on this planet.

- Peter Dinklage

Does anybody actually go out in L.A.? When I lived there, I'd just stay in my apartment.

- Peter Dinklage

Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I'm seemingly O.K. with it, I can't preach how to be O.K. with it. I don't think I still am O.K. with it. There's days when I'm not.

- Peter Dinklage

They'll say, 'Oh, he's sexy,' but women still go for guys who are 6ft 2 ins. I don't believe any of it for a minute.

- Peter Dinklage

My family had a habit of collecting creatures that didn't always want to be pets. The first animal I can remember was a Lab named Zoe.

- Peter Dinklage

I don't like people being cautious and tentative and choosing their words carefully around me because I'm a dwarf.

- Peter Dinklage

I love working with the same actors repeatedly. That happens a lot. It's kind of inevitable, especially if you work with the same writers and directors and you start to form a company of actors. You gravitate towards each other.

- Peter Dinklage

I just think the less you know about an actor, the more serious you'll take them as an actor because they will disappear a little bit.

- Peter Dinklage

Friends don't care about issues like dwarf tossing.

- Peter Dinklage

I have a friend who says, 'The world doesn't need another angry dwarf!'

- Peter Dinklage

I think 'No' is a very powerful word in our business that is very hard to use early on in your career. But I also think I was pretty arrogant when I was younger... I used that word maybe too much, but it did help me with finding roles that I did like.

- Peter Dinklage

George Martin is an incredible writer.

- Peter Dinklage

I think if actors are successful at one thing, they paint themselves into a corner sometimes, and what's the fun in that?

- Peter Dinklage

The leads are often the boring part.

- Peter Dinklage

I'm not going to play my violin, but with my dwarfism, I'm a bit of a mutant.

- Peter Dinklage

I'm always attracted to anti-hero roles.

- Peter Dinklage

I do not fault anyone else who makes choices to play characters that they wished they hadn't... Because at the end of the day, none of us are happy with our jobs all the time.

- Peter Dinklage

I'm recognized, let me put it that way.

- Peter Dinklage

I've been to Sundance before, but I'd never seen a lot of screenings.

- Peter Dinklage

I don't socialize. I'm kind of a hermit. The life of an actor can be very lonely.

- Peter Dinklage

I was born in 1969, believe it or not, so I was a child in the '70s.

- Peter Dinklage

Animals used for food are treated like unfeeling machinery.

- Peter Dinklage

Sometimes on sets, I shut down, try to focus.

- Peter Dinklage

Being on television, playing the same character for many years, for me, I think that would get a little tedious.

- Peter Dinklage

I'm a private person in many ways.

- Peter Dinklage

You want your privacy as a human being.

- Peter Dinklage