Quotes By Dustin Hoffman

So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.

For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible.

Blame is for God and small children.

In my room as a kid... I'd play a fighter and get knocked to the floor and come back to win.

Somehow I think it was declared very early on that I was the - if not the black sheep of the family, not a very good student.

Well this is aptly called a junket, for both of us. I have never been to a house of prostitution, but I understand that you get in more than seven minutes.

I feel cheated never being able to know what it's like to get pregnant, carry a child and breast feed.

If you have this enormous talent, it's got you by the balls, it's a demon. You can't be a family man and a husband and a caring person and be that animal. Dickens wasn't that nice a guy.

A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution.

I mean, I don't think I'm alone when I look at the homeless person or the bum or the psychotic or the drunk or the drug addict or the criminal and see their baby pictures in my mind's eye. You don't think they were cute like every other baby?

I did some writing and bought a book, and have been working on that as a film to act and direct in.

I envy people who can just look at a sunset. I wonder how you can shoot it. There is nothing more grotesque to me than a vacation.

One thing about being successful is that I stopped being afraid of dying. Once you're a star you're dead already. You're embalmed.

Well first of all, it's hard to shoot a movie and break for a long time and then come back and do, in a sense, one of the biggest scenes that each character had.

If there is no direct threat why are we invading?

Life stinks, but that doesn't mean you don't enjoy it.

There's a rebirth that goes on with us continuously as human beings. I don't understand, personally, how you can be bored. I can understand how you can be depressed, but I just don't understand boredom.

I did a movie called Marathon Man and it was one of my best memories.

I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil.

The two basic items necessary to sustain life are sunshine and coconut milk.

And that's another reason to make this movie: We can put plays on film now, at a relatively small cost, and they will reach an audience they would never have reached otherwise.

Myth is supposed to bring us together, but fantasy alienates us.

I stopped working a few years ago because I just lost a spark that I'd had before. I thought I'd just try writing, and maybe start directing, but I did it very quietly.

I think the most insulting thing you can do to a director is to challenge when he or she is satisfied with your interpretation.

I decided to become an actor because I was failing in school and I needed the credits.