Al Pacino Quotations

I'm an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.

In America most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful - my personal life suffers.

I'm so shy now I wear sunglasses everywhere I go.

My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.

My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn't know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother.

My weaknesses... I wish I could come up with something. I'd probably have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. Maybe they're the same thing.

It's easy to fool the eye but it's hard to fool the heart.

The truth is, you know, we need our anodynes. You know that word, anodynes? We need that in life some times. A good warm bath can be one for you, or a whatever.

There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying - even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.

You need some insecurity if you're an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven't yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most actors just fade away like old soldiers.

I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff, or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?

I used to wear disguises, like hats and false beards, just to walk around and avoid attention.

I remember acting in a school play about the melting pot when I was very little. There was a great big pot onstage. On the other side of the pot was a little girl who had dark hair, and she and I were representing the Italians. And I thought: Is that what an Italian looked like?

I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.

I don't ever give my opinion. Opinions I have about anything are in my personal life.

I've never liked the recognition, the questions, the publicity. I have often felt like running away and hiding.

The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.

It would be hard to play a character you don't like - for me anyway - or can't find something in them to like.

I don't need bodyguards. I'm from the South Bronx.

Francis Ford Coppola did this early on. You tape a movie, like a radio show, and you have the narrator read all the stage directions. And then you go back like a few days later and then you listen to the movie. And it sort of plays in your mind like a film, like a first rough cut of a movie.

You do get very tired sometimes, when you're sitting around for hours in movies. You get depleted.

Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We've been here 100 years. Isn't Italian-American culture American culture? That's because we're so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.

Most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.

Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don't believe me when I tell them. That's how I saw myself, in comedy.

All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don't think I would be on 'Dancing with the Stars,' mainly because I would be too shy.

I've often said there's two kinds of actors. There's a more gregarious type and the shy type.

I was not prepared for fame. It hit me hard, and I did not have the capacity to cope.

That's where humour lives for me. In the body. The Steve Martin kind of stuff or Jim Carrey, that's what I like. I've always felt that's what I would like to do.

I've always been in the theater. I've always gone to it. That's been my way to cope. Early on in my career, I remember running - fleeing - to the theater as a way of coping with all the meshugaas that was going on for me.

I've never cared for guns. In fact, when I did 'Scent of a Woman' I had to learn how to assemble one.

When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I'd go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.

Playing a character is an illusion, and I feel that when you know too much about a person, possibly part of that illusion is disrupted.

There are a lot of roles in Shakespeare, basically. If I feel that the script is a movie, I would be interested in doing any role of Shakespeare's.

My grandmother always came to my shows. She was always concerned about the way I dressed - even later on, when I was well known and I supported her.

Doing Shakespeare once is not fair to the play. I have been in Shakespeare plays when it's not until the last two or three performances when I even understand certain things. In the old days star actors would travel the world doing the same parts over and over again.

It surprised me, the feeling I got when I won the Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman.' It was a new feeling. I'd never felt it. I don't see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

It's never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you - you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you spend a lot of time waiting around.

Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there's a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.

I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.

Theater for me at one point was a lifestyle, too.

Jamie Foxx does a good rendition of me. It's a real gift, mimicry of that kind, the tonal thing. It's sort of like having a talent for playing an instrument.

At this point in my career, I don't have to deal with audition rejections. So I get my rejection from other things. My children can make me feel rejected. They can humble you pretty quick.

When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I'm going to do a big scene that's dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.

I'd like to be remembered as the only man who lived to be 250 years old!

I was a kid when Dean came out. Dean was the inspiration. Even the red jacket he wore in 'Rebel Without a Cause,' you saw that red jacket popping up all over the place. He really reached people in a way; it was kind of a phenomenon when you think of it. I wonder what it would be like today, that kind of a person ... he made that connection with his audience. And I remember at that time my mother loved him. He reached everybody.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful -- my personal life suffers.

Either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.

We live in a world where the more you're working, the more things you do. It's a workaday world.

I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.

There is only one way of surviving all the early heartbreaks in this business. You must have a sense of humor. And I think it also helps if you are a dreamer. I had my dreams all right. And that is something no one can ever take away. They cost nothing, and they can be as real as you like to make them. You own your dreams and they are priceless. I've been a lavatory attendant, a theatre usher, a panhandler, all for real. Now, as an actor, I can be a journalist today and a brain surgeon tomorrow. That's the stuff my dreams are made of.

Forget the career, do the work. If you feel what you are doing is on line and you're going someplace and you have a vision and you stay with it, eventually things will happen.

The camera can film my face but until it captures my soul, you don't have a movie,

I like women who can cook. That's first. Love is very important, but you've got to have a friend first - you want to finally come to a point where you say that the women you're with is also your friend.

It turned out that time doesn't heal the wound , but in its so merciful way , blunts the edges ever so slightly

sometimes it's better to be with the devil u know than the angel u didn't know

Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, but don't swallow.

Freedom, baby, is never having to say youre sorry.

Failure's relative. I've always felt, even early on, if I lose the freedom to fail, something's not right about that. It's how you treat failure, too. There's something to learn from it. I've had movies that have failed colossally, so you kind of analyze your failures: What kind of failure was it? A failure because it's misunderstood by others? A failure because you misunderstood it yourself?

You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God... and where can you go from there?

If you get all tangled up, just tango on.

Without coffee something’s missing

They say we die twice - once when the last breath leaves our body and once when the last person we know says our name.

On any given Sunday you're gonna win or you're gonna lose. The point is -- can you win or lose like a man?

Vanity: my favorite sin.

Our life is looking forward or looking back, that's it. Where is the moment?

Take a look at Israel's history and you would know who the terrorist is.

Sometimes you're fighting corporations and forget that people can talk to each other.

I love work because it keeps sex in perspective. Otherwise, it can become a preoccupation.

A lot of acting is private time.

The literal, basic thing of the stage is really like a magnet. It brings me back to earth.

The only thing in this world that gives orders is balls.

I was playing a part of someone dealing dope on a street corner - and there was a guy actually dealing heroin right there. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I got real confused.

That's the way to live - around people who care. It may be a tough ride, but something is going to come out of it.

I don't talk politics and I don't talk philosophy or anything like that, but if you look at my work, you might get an expression of me as a person.

The fruit falls off the tree. You don't shake it off before it's ready to fall.

A kiss is a lusty dollop of dessert to be served with desire and savored with passion.

There was a time in my life when being dishonest with women was the natural way to be. I finally said, "Hey, I have to stop this silliness."

It wasn't until I got older that I realized acting was something I could really do.

Love goes through different stages. But it endures.

I don't regret anything. I feel like I've made what I would call mistakes. I picked the wrong movie, or I didn't pursue a character, but everything you do is part of you and you get something from it.

What's this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?

The actor becomes an emotional athlete.

The thing that can get you a little upset is when people say other people are better than you. That can bug you.

All I am is what I'm going after.

I hope the perception is that I'm an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.

I want to be a great actor someday, and I've decided there's no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.

You'll never be alone if you’ve got a book.

Sometimes what we imagine and the world aren't different things. Sometimes they are the same exact thing.

There is no happiness. There is only concentration.

When I was doing 'Scarface,' I remember being in love at that time. One of the few times in my life. And I was so glad it was at that time. I would come home and she would tell me about her life that day and all her problems and I remember saying to her, look, you really got me through this picture because I would shed everything when I came home.

If I find something and feel as though I can contribute to [it] in a way and feel I'm in it, whatever that means, I'm expressing something that I feel is a way to exercise my talent and help communicate a role as a human being in a movie, I will do that.

I wanted to be a baseball player, naturally, but I wasn't good enough. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I just had a kind of energy, I was a fairly happy kid.

I don’t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians… it’s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it’s not who you love… a man, a woman, what have you… it’s the fact that you love. That is all that truly matters.

Either I act or I die.

Actors are always outsiders. It's necessary to be able to interpret - and that gets distorted when you become famous.

Vanity is my favourite sin.

We start to realize that there are anodynes in life that help us through the day. I don't care if it's a walk in the park, a look out the window, a good bubble bath - whatever. Even a meal you like, or a friend you want to call. That helps us solve all this stuff in our head.