Paul Newman Quotations

Newman's second law: Just when things look darkest, they go black.

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character.

Newman's first law: It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down.

If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.

So you wound up with Apollo. If he's sometimes hard to swallow. Use this.

You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: 'Holy Christ, whaddya know - I'm still around!' It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.

Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.

People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.

To be an actor you have to be a child.

The star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars.

Let's say this was a release of a gas and it migrated through the neighborhood. You want to know what that was as quickly as possible, and certainly 24 hours later that emission is long gone.

McDonald's new Asian Salad plus Newman's Own low fat Sesame Ginger salad dressing is a marriage of taste - just like mine.

She was vibrant. She was stylish. She was tough. She was caring, and she will be sorely missed.

From a human perspective, it's a little dismaying because this means there's still going to be higher levels of UV.

We lost the gearbox and I started sliding around out there. I was having a good time up until that point.

He was treated for bruised ribs on the upper left side of his chest. I got overconfident on a fresh set of tires. The tires weren't warm enough and I slipped.

Three of us walked over there; I just carried the stuff back, ... They are getting along so they need all the help they can get.

We ran (an unofficial track record) 52.4 when we tested here a month or so ago,

Each town has its own allure and it has its own character. This race would be different from Long Beach, it would be different from Edmonton, and you guys will put your own signature on it. It's a reciprocal trade agreement. Champ Car gets a great race, and you get a great three-day festival, so everybody wins,

Costa Rica is a marvelous place to enter the atmosphere.

Racing here for me is muscle memory. Running at the limit is just kind of average. You are always trying to go as fast as you can go. If you can do it one lap, the next lap can be just as easy until you get tired.

Backstage they think the only reason he's even in the vicinity was because they told him this whole thing was yesterday.

Skin cancer rates will go up. Sunburns will occur at a faster rate, degradation of plastics and so forth, because of enhanced ultraviolet radiation from a lowering of ozone.

I think my most memorable win was in 1979 when I won the SCCA National Championship at a race down in Atlanta, ... That was a very good race against tough competition.

I just try to get through the day.

I picture my epitaph: ""Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown"".

Generally, the ozone hole remains close to the (South) Pole, so for human populations, we have to keep an eye on it, and we have to be a bit worried about it, but we don't have to jump to extremes here.

It's about five percent larger than what we saw back in 1996.

The Alexander Technique helped a long-standing back problem and to get a good night's sleep after many years of tossing and turning.

I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.

I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck: the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others; made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.

Twenty-five years ago I couldn`t walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don`t ask me about my movies and they don`t ask me about my salad dressing because they don`t know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.

The best gift you can give yourself is the gift of possibility.

When you see the right thing to do, you'd better do it.

Winning isn't everything.... it's just all there is.

There really is no such thing as a sick child; there are children who happen to be sick. Think about it, and you will understand the magic of the Camps

I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

A man with no enemies is a man with no character.

You only grow when you are alone.

I want to acknowledge luck, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others.

I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don't look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community.

Dreams without movement are delusions, escapes, kid’s play. You have to put your feet into your dreams if they’re ever going to be reality. The dreamers we know and love today are the ones who worked the hardest

There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black.

The need is great and so are the opportunities to make a difference.

I wasn't running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store. Of course now that I'm selling spaghetti sauce (with Newman's Own), I begin to understand the romance of business.. the allure of being the biggest fish in the pond and the juice you get from beating out your competitors.

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.

I check my pulse and if I can find it, I know I've got a chance

Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.

Who's to say who's an expert?

Those with a moral deficit put on a good show, and sleep like a baby.

A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.

Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it.

I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?

For those of you who like to scarf your popcorn in the sack, the good news is that Newman's Own contains an aphrodisiac.

I'm a great believer in luck and the extraordinary role that plays in all of our lives.

It's always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black.

It's really important to be attentive to the people who have less - who are less fortunate than you are.

The concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn't hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. I'm bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet.

It's been a privilege to be here.

Building weapons that we don't need, don't work, and aren't necessary, and have no mission — that's not bad politics, that's robbery.

I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor.

At the beginning of your career, it's 'Who is Paul Newman?' and then it's 'Get me Paul Newman.' Then it's 'Get me a young Paul Newman.' Then it's 'Who is Paul Newman?'

Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.

From the very beginning, we bucked tradition. When the experts said that something was "always done" in a certain way, we'd do it our way, which was sometimes the very opposite.

...." I was rather discouraged when I discovered that Paul and Hotch had no marketing survey, no business plan, no budget, no organized strategy for the introduction of the sauce. When asked about this lack of preparation, the haphazard nature of their business, Paul said, 'Me in this business is just part of life's great folly. Stay loose, men, keep 'em off balance.'"

Choose between yesterday and tomorrow.

While progress should never come to a halt, there are many places it should never come to at all.

The best thing you can give yourselves...is the gift of possibility. And the best thing you can give each other is the pledge to go on protecting that gift in each other as long as you live.

What could be better than to hold your hand out to people less fortunate than you are?

Now then, if we were to go the lowest road and plaster my face on the bottle of oil and vinegar dressing just to line our pockets, it would sink. But to go the low road to get to the high road- shameless exploitation for charity, for the common good- now that's an idea worth the hustle, a reciprocal trade agreement.

In racing, the fastest person wins. It is very simple.

A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs

Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other. You can't spend a lifetime breathing down each other's necks. We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.

A lot of people have dreams and never do anything about them. When you have ideas and dreams, you do something about it.

We've polluted the stratosphere with these chlorine and bromine compounds, and because it's now colder, and because we have this change in the climate, we're getting more ozone loss than we would have gotten in a normal year.

I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there's a spirit that takes action, a heart, and a talent that doesn't come from my blue eyes.

From salad dressings all blessings flow.

Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society.

I think transitions are never that noticeable, but they are always on their way. It has to do with distance and accessibility. People call it mellowing, but I think it's how available you are toward other people, or how much you distance yourself.

Our marriage works because we each carry clubs of equal weight and size.

What we got here is a failure to communicate.

The problem with getting older is you still remember how things used to be.

The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films.

On adultery: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?

A feud should live a full and colorful life, and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.

People like to do what they used to do after they've stopped being able to do it.

The accusation is always on the first page, and the retraction on page 19.

I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.

It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm tired.' [After winning his first Oscar after so many losses]

I wish I could recall with clarity the impulse that compelled me to help bring this camp into being. I'd be pleased if I could announce a motive of lofty purpose. I've been accused of compassion, of altruism, of devotion to Christian, Hebrew, and Muslim ethic, but however desperate I am to claim ownership of a high ideal, I cannot. I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck; the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.

Natural law. Sons are put on this earth to trouble their fathers.

It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.

So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary.

No sense in being a grifter if it's the same as being a citizen.

The only question I ever ask any woman is, 'what time is your husband coming home?'

I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.