Actors From New York City

"Attack. When I first heard that word, my gut reaction was, "oh shit". Does that surprise you? Of course it does. You probably expected "the brass" to be just champing at that bit, all that blood and guts, "hold 'em by the nose while we kick 'em in the ass" crap. I don't know who created the stereotype hard-charging, dim-witted, high school football coach of a general officer. Maybe it was Hollywood, or the civilian press, or maybe we did it to ourselves, by allowing those insipid, egocentric clowns- the MacArthurs and Halseys and Curtis E. LeMays- to define our image to the rest of the country. Point is, that's the image of those in uniform, and it couldn't be further from the truth."

"They teach you how to resist the enemy, how to protect your mind and spirit. They don’t teach you how to resist your own people, especially people who think they’re trying to “help” you see “the truth.”"

"Joy, sadness, confidence, anxiety, love, hatred, fear — all of these feelings and thousands more that make up the human “heart” are as useless to the living dead as the organ of the same name. Who knows if this is humanity’s greatest weakness or strength? The debate continues, and probably will forever."

"The dead walk among us. Zombies, ghouls — no matter what their label — these somnambulists are the greatest threat to humanity, other than humanity itself."

"Do you know how many times, when I was a kid, going to Europe, having a Frenchman try to get on my case about Vietnam. And that wasn't the problem, do you know what it was like to have other kids, other American students go, "yeah, it's pretty bad, in Vietnam, we should, yeah". And I'd be like, 'but, mhmm, French Indochina.' , and they'd be like, "Oh is that near Vietnam" (groans). We don't educate our young people, and then we send them out into the world, as ambassadors as lameness. So no, no world empire, I don't want to be responsible for the plumbing in Rwanda, but we do need to become as much of a student of them as they are of us. Because, here's the thing. Well, the problem with the global village, remember in the early 90's, with the term now, global village, well the problem with the global village is that a lot of people are waking up realizing that they are in the global villages ghetto. And now with media, we are broadcasting these images of our wealth, and our power, our society, and the people in the global village are looking up on the hill seeing that mansion, but we're not looking down into the slum, and we need to do that. There's just so many times you can drive slowly through the ghetto in a rich convertible before you get carjacked. So this is what I mean, we need to engage..."

"People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone... Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways.""

"You wanna know who lost World War Z? Whales. I guess they never really had a chance, not with several million hungry boat people and half the world's navies converted to fishing fleets. [...] So the next time someone tries to tell you about how the true losses of this war are "our innocence" or "part of our humanity"... Whatever, bro. Tell it to the whales."

"As soon as the report came in, [General Lang] sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders, addressed and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain. Bastard. I hate him now even more than I did on the way to Hamburg... he knew this was just the first step of a long war and we were going to need men like him to win it... That's why he deserted us like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep, treacherous mountain road. We'd all have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what he'd done behind us. [Lang] couldn't do that. He couldn't shoulder the weight."

"No one would have expected [the escalation of nuclear hostilities], but then again, no one would have expected the dead to rise, now would they? Only one could have foreseen this, and I don’t believe in him anymore."

"The Allies had the resources, industry, and logistics of an entire planet. The Axis, on the other hand, had to depend on what scant assets they could scrape up within their borders. This time we were the Axis."

"For some people the revelation comes too late that life is best kept to the essentials. Some people are given their last rites and that person might say in their last breath, "I should have celebrated Festivus.""

"In the ancient days when gods played their own games, and had their own celebrations, tossing lightning bolts between mountaintops, hurling great boulders — Festivus came out of that. It's a holiday that celebrates being alive at a time when it was hard to be alive. There was no Christ yet, no Yahweh, no Buddha. There were great ruins and raw nature. But there was a kindling spark of hope among men. They celebrated that great thunderous storms hadn't enveloped them in the past year, that landslides hadn't destroyed them. They made wishes that their crops would grow in the fields, that they'd have food the next year and the wild animals wouldn't attack and eat them. There's something pure about Festivus, something primal, raw in the hearts of humans."

"All I'm saying is, if you celebrate Festivus, you may live a little longer. You are getting back to the essentials, to the days of gods on mountaintops and howling wolves. Because you are saying the holidays are in the heart, a celebration of being alive with our fellow humans. For that purpose, an aluminum pole will do just as well as anything else — as long as it's not stuck in the wrong place."

"[A banker is] a man who will lend you money if you can prove to him that you don't need it."

"They fascinated me at first. Then suddenly it struck me that their constant snobbish talk about the 'theatah' was a little on the phony side. I decided it give it a try myself, just to show them anyone could do it. Before I knew it, I was getting small parts on Broadway, then bigger ones. Then finally I got some good spots in Dead End and Stage Door and finally took over the lead from Wally Ford in Of Mice and Men."

"This is a very complex, wondrous business I'm in. My kicks are my work. I'm miserable when I'm not working."

"That was the best break of my life, hooking up with the Warners. They don't go much for the "pretty boy" type there. An average-looking guy like me has a chance to get someplace, to portray people the way they really are, without any frills."

"The only thing I want to do in films is be Mr. Joe Average as well as I know how. Of course, anyone whose face appears often enough on the screen is bound to have bobby-soxers after him for autographs. But what I really get a kick out of is when cab drivers around New York lean out and yell 'Hi Brooklyn' when I walk by. They make me feel I'm putting it across O.K. when I try to be Joe Average."

"That dude was so funny even his standup work just captures like a sliver of how fucking funny that guy was [...] [O'Neal] walking into a deli to buy a newspaper was funnier than most comedians I ever met."

"Sex is so much fun for dudes. Cause we got a money shot. You don't understand what it's like to see-- we both have orgasms, but we men have a receipt. You be like, I am satisfied, because that's what it is-- look at it! You don't think you'd be happier, ladies, if you could just shoot a couple of eggs in a guy's face? Right on top of his forehead. You wouldn't be happier? And he's just sitting there? And you go, "Aw, that felt good. Go in the bathroom and wash your face." Call your friends on the phone, "I just egged on top of his head." (as man) "Don't tell your friends our business!" (as woman) "Shut up, she already knows I egg on top of your head.""

"I can say anything I goddamn want racially. And white people have to sit there and take it. (as white person) "I am evil, yes." I like to talk to white people about being honest about Obama. You gave it a shot. You did. You gave it a two-year shot. I'm mad at him (Obama) because I thought I would have a white slave by now! I thought it was vengeance day! I thought I had me a white family! A big old, fat white girl. Go warm my bed up-- get upstairs, Susan! Warm my bed up feed my baby with your giant white titties! I'm gonna go outside and stare your husband in the face and decide whether I'm gonna sell him or not!"

"You gotta stop lying. You know… I mean it’s difficult to tell the truth, but you gotta start telling the truth cause it kills you, it takes something out of you when you’re…. a phony. You know, I’d rather die than to be phony really, cause… it kills me. And I’m…there’s nothing worse... like I’m depressed, but I’m not suicidal. Do you know how like… horrible it is just being to… to want to kill yourself but you just can’t, you won’t kill yourself? Do you understand what that is? So I had to figure out a way how to make myself happy….and that’s not to lie."

"(after host Anthony Cumia complained that a black, female bartender once refused to give him an extra drink, even after he had tipped her $20) Let me tell you, black people are very sensitive about context. (You meant), "Sweetie, no disrespect, here's a twenty," but (she took it as), "Here, fat nigga-lean, take this twenty and you will be giving me my beers, all day, at my request, you fat fuck." She smelled it on you, so she said, "Take your twenty and shove it up your ass, cracker devil.""

"A beautiful 35-year old ain't as good-looking as an ugly 19-year old."

"(on the killing of Osama Bin Laden) I watched the Bin Laden thing, and you know, there's what's called the "conspiracy nuts" and whatever, and the thing that gets me is that when there is one little question, that makes you go, "What?" That we don't galvanize and say, "No, no, no, you're not allowed to say anything else until we cover this. Give me a straight answer, because flushing Bin Laden down the ocean, like he's cocaine, from The Goodfellas, it doesn't prove anything." You know, somebody like (Sean) Hannity would make me sound like a complete idiot if I went on his show and went, "He flushed him down the fucking ocean!" But, it's just, you go, "There's nothing that makes you go, what?""

"I generally don't like living in a world where being what a man is, is a horrible thing; and no matter what a woman is, is a wonderful thing."

"I said to my girl, "The reason you have a key (to my house) is to keep me from having other women in my house. I give you an open invitation." See, she wants me to go, "Because I love you and I trust you, and I want you to trust me." It's because the fear of my girl walking in will keep me from having a young broad sitting on top of my counter. But she wants that to be because I love her so much, but it's just to protect me from my own manness."

"If you tell me 2 + 2 is 4, and I know it is, then you... shove marbles up your ass, I go "Damn, Anthony shoves marbles in his ass?" But [the fact that you shove marbles in your ass] doesn't invalidate 2 + 2 = 4."

"Have your opinion, don't let your opinion have you."

"People always say "Don't you support the troops?" But the troops are an entity that just follows orders. It's not about individuals or people. So when I say "I don't support the troops", I'm saying I don't support the bankers and politicians who are making them do what they do."

"(on the entertainment business) This business is the beast and it eats everybody and shits them out. But here's what's funny about the beast: it's a neverending line of people who want to get in the mouth and get chewed up and shit out. It's because, when you get in the belly, you get $2 million a week. And when you get shit out, you're a pile back there. And you have the option to wait to get back in line, and wait to go get back in the beast, and get eaten and shit out! And we line up! ... And I didn't even get to the beast yet. 20 years! See, when the beast pick you up, to put you in its mouth, you shinin'. People see you. Sometimes, see what "15 minutes of fame" is? The beast throws somebody down, they-- that was reality (show) people. This one was an athlete that had one good year. And you throw him down. Now, you see, "Ooh, that looks like a delicious young thing there." Eat, chew... That's why I love Charlie Sheen so much-- he was in the belly. When you making $2 million a week doing anything, you're in the absolute belly, and for that fucker to betray his position in the belly, to actually give the beast indigestion, was spectacular. He was a martyr. And Mel Gibson, too! He could have been the beast, he was so big. And they turned on him, you know what I'm saying? So, anybody that gets that deep and turns on the beast, man, you've got to root for him, no matter what, because they're martyrs, because no one's going to stand up for them. And then, Hollywood, they tell you who to hate. Like when they rose up against him, to not be on The Hangover 2. The movie was about trannies, fucking people in the ass, drugs, death, and Mike Tyson, who got a rape conviction. And you motherfuckers decide to gang up on Mel Gibson? He can't play a tattoo artist in The Hangover 2?! Come on, man. It's not hypocrisy, because that's a human thing. It's something else... it's somebody owe somebody the favor."

"Having women work with men is like having a grizzly bear work with salmon . . . dipped in honey."

"This is my question, for life: have we retired the phrase, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me"? Is it legal for me to say, "I endorse hate speech, I don't give a fuck"? I want hate speech. Why can't I hate you...in speech?"

"Women want us to like them, but they don't even like each other."

"I just think the closer we (as a species) think we get to God, the closer we get to death."

"Men want to be alone, but we don't wanna be by ourselves."

"You are a charmer. You are the Jewish Cary Grant."

"Oprah: Is there a muscle you use for performing? Billy: Yes — my brain."

"When I've gotten criticism, it's that it's too long, too soft, didn't hit the government hard enough. Then when I do hit the government, they go, "What's he doing hitting the government?""

"How do you find what's going to make everybody have this strange reaction in their bodies, this response that's sort of chemical and physical all at once—this noise and emotion that changes how you sit? A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it's really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it's great."

"I did Bill Cosby's "Noah." Just took the routine from him, word for word, and didn't even think it was stealing. Years later my friends started calling me up saying, "There's this guy, Bill Cosby, who's doing your stuff!""

"I fell in love with the right person, a person I know and who knows me."

"Women need a reason to have sex while men just need a place."

"The March of Dimes"

"Every blossom I see reminds me of you"

"It takes twenty years to make an overnight success."

"He and Jolson were wonderful entertainers the like of which you don't see anymore. They weren't comedians really, but funny singing entertainers of the kind I used to see and love in the English music hall. It's a shame that young performers these days aren't remotely like them."

"I'm tossing up punchlines that were never there... I'm breaking through I'm bending spoons I'm keeping flowers in full bloom I'm looking for answers from the great beyond."

"T'ank you veddy much."

"I am not a comic, I have never told a joke...The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him...My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can....They say, 'Oh wow, Andy Kaufman, he's a really funny guy.' But I'm not trying to be funny. I just want to play with their heads.""