The Southern Baptist Church is a specific culture in itself. So, I had to study, talk to people, watch tape and go to performances to see how Gospel artists move compared to secular artists.

People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties… they live like ants.

I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.

You don’t really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.

I had a record deal early in my life and they offered me the movie, but they said that I had to come in and sing because they needed a singer.

I have lived too completely, I think. I have known every human emotion.

When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.

I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.

Secular artists see themselves with performance; they are more self involved, presentational.

In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision.

As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.

Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.

My close-up was magnificent!

The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.

I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us a sense of wonder. Film, like no other medium, makes a visceral appeal to our humanity.

I had to study acting to basically educate myself.

I have never met a vampire personally, but I don’t know what might happen tomorrow.

Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn’t stand it.

I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. To me it was meaningless. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sings about the beauty of the work...

Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what...

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

Audiences are audiences.

The play is always fresh to me. It’s not the audience’s fault that I’ve said the words before.

Of all the roles I’ve done on the stage, I’m partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.

The former ruling class kept the community of actors in ignorance by means of various lies.

I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.

I just didn’t know who was going to be my partner. I knew that once I had grown to be a man that I was going to attract the person that I deserved to be...

I look in the mirror and say to myself, Can it be you once played Romeo?

Women have a predestination to suffering.

I’m exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.

Sometimes in the black culture, being raised as an independent woman is misconstrued as someone who doesn’t need a man. I think that’s wrong. I think we all need someone.

In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.

But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.

Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.

A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.

The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.

I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.

I knew immediately that she was going to be in my life forever. I didn’t know in what capacity, but I knew that I had found someone who was going to be close to me...

I never play without my cape.

You can’t make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.

If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It’s the only thing I haven’t done yet that I would like to.

The whole time I was modeling, I had a place in Paris, and a place in New York, and I was really single.

In the studio the director controls the actor’s every move, every inflection, every expression.

But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.

We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.

Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.

The role seemed to demand that I keep myself worked up to fever pitch, so I took on the actual attributes of the horrible vampire, Dracula.

I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God’s purpose and God’s intent.

I know I can act and it doesn’t matter where you come from.

I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.