“I just want to say, good night, sweet prince, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“’Pretty In Pink’ was a huge hit for me.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“The most terrifying thing for most everybody in the whole Western World is to take responsibility for your own life and to experience real freedom.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“The void, the concept of nothingness, is terrifying to most people on the planet. And I get anxiety attacks myself. I know the fear of that void. You have to learn to die before you die. You give up, surrender to the void, to nothingness.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I play myself all the time, on camera and off. What else can I do?”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I made it a point not to graduate. I thought that was a positive, independent kind of statement.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Every actor is a character actor.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Everything changes every day.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“You get older. In the end, you end up accepting everything in your life – suffering, horror, love, loss, hate – all of it.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I would’ve preferred to blossom earlier in life.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve never seen a Western that was really truthful. Most are just morality plays. Good guys and bad guys – and the good guys always win, whereas in reality, most of the sheriffs were as bad as the gangsters they were after.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“People know you as an actor, and labels are so comfortable for people. That syndrome is always hard to get past.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I like to stay home and watch television. The Game Show channel, mostly.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I think I’m blessed with a pretty tough psyche.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“My feeling or philosophy is closer to Taoism and Zen Buddhism, ’cause it’s the most practical.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve got a pretty iconoclastic attitude about all institutions myself. And I just think the church was corrupted right after Christ was killed.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve been blessed. I’ve worked with a lot of good people.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Casting is a convoluted kind of trip. No one likes to be typed – even if you’re a cab driver, or whatever you do.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I can’t stress too much how much Ry Cooder was an influence on me. Having one of the most respected musicians around like my singing really gave me the confidence to do it.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“’Paris, Texas’ gave me a chance to play compassion, and I’m spelling that with a capital C.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I used to sing when I was six years old. When the family would leave the house, I’d get up on the stool and sing. ‘T for Texas, T for Tenessee, T for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me.’ I was in love with my babysitter. She was 18. I was six.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I do the same series of five exercises 21 times each day – an ancient Tibetan practice that stimulates your chakras.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I hated being typecast in those roles. It was personally limiting, only playing stereotyped heavies. But I got those roles because I was angry, because that’s what I projected. I was angry at my mother and father because they didn’t get along, angry at the church. On top of that, I had an extreme lack of self-confidence.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Heisenberg, Max Plank and Einstein, they all agreed that science could not solve the mystery of the universe.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve always been a searcher – you know, a hunter. I’m certainly not the only one. They say actors shouldn’t get political and everything, but you can’t separate yourself. You can’t disconnect yourself from anything.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“My father and mother were not that compatible. I don’t think they had a good wedding night, and I was the product of that. We weren’t close.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“You want people to feel something when you tell a story, whether they feel happy or whether they feel sad.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“But I’m not imaginative. I couldn’t look into the future, like Star Wars or Robots or anything like that.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“California is full of Mexican culture and Mexican music.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I don’t believe in singing lessons. You can sing or you can’t.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I have a good ear for languages.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I really liked the Mariachi singing in Westerns.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I sing and play guitar and harmonica. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I took speech training. I took a few voice lessons in college.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’m not really into religion.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve never been ambitious about recording.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve received a lot of compliments. People come right up to me on the street. They recognize me.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Speech lessons probably did more for my singing voice – they teach you breathing, resonance.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“The band I’ve played with for 10 or 12 years now, we’ve been all over, but we mostly play in LA.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I realized early on that if I became an actor, I could play a writer and a sculptor and a painter and be all the things you just don’t have time to be in your lifetime. I could get to learn about all of them.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was in a movie called ‘Twister,’ and in it, I had to hit a golf ball off of a roof with a driving wood. The guy who owned the place where we shot showed me how to do it, and I hit the ball about 150 yards.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’m very fortunate. I don’t think anyone should have a job that they don’t really enjoy.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I change every day. I’m still changing.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’m big into Eastern concepts. The horror of life, the love of children, the whole phantasmagoria – it’s all meaningless. Be still, and see what happens. All of life unfolds perfectly. You have to get beyond consciousness.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I watch television. Game shows – I hate the hosts and the people on them, and I love the questions and the answers.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“There is no self.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk. My first performance was of a song called ‘My Blue Heaven,’ which I began singing when I was a year and a half.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“The first music I remember hearing was the traditional songs of Kentucky – things like ‘Roll Along Kentucky Moon.’”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I don’t recall what the first record I bought was, but I definitely remember hearing Creedence’s ‘Born on the Bayou’ and going out and buying it. The guitar and drums in that band were really good. I loved the words to the title track, and Fogerty’s voice sounded just great.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“For a musician to be good, he has to have humanity and care about the other guy. And as for blues – in a sense, black people have kept this country alive and given us our entire musical heritage.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Study up on the Eastern religions. They’re the only ones that are realistic. There’s no answer, see.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“There is no answer. That’s what Buddhism says. The Void, oblivion, no answer. To be in that state is an enlightened state.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“’Alien?’ Oh, yeah. I still get fanmail almost every week, pictures from all over the world on that movie. That’s one of the most popular films I’ve done.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I just wasn’t psychologically made to get married or, God forbid, be a father.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I like to do nothing.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I do all the classics, like Dylan, Kristofferson, Jimmy Reed, Mexican mariachi songs, some jazz songs from the ’30s. Cole Porter’s ‘Begin the Beguine,’ that’s one of my favorites.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’m just dealing with what’s happening, with what is. Joy, happiness, good, bad, all those terms are meaningless to me.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I met Dylan on ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.’ We buddied around for quite a while after that. We jammed together; he liked my Mexican songs.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I have to wait and see what happens. Because nobody’s in charge.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“People kept asking me, ‘When are you singing again?’ so I kept doing it. It was that simple.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I can understand why it takes some people a long time to really be a singer. You have to find out, ‘Why am I singing? What am I doing this for?’ I do it because I enjoy it, and philosophically, music is a catalyst. It’s a refining agent.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“’Paris, Texas’ is the first film that I’ve totally cared about, the first movie I totally wanted to do – and that after 27 years that I considered my prison term.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was in World War Two at the battle of Okinawa.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“If I never did another film after ‘Paris, Texas,’ I’d be happy.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was the classic killer. I always played an angry man. I think it was because I used to really be like that – I was hostile. And because I had a good sense of theatrical truth, I used my anger and rebelliousness and just went with it. Anger was just a part of me.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I think every actor wants to play those big parts. In the very first play I ever did, I remember understanding all the characters in it. I always felt I could play anyone.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’m tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don’t mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It’s like age. It’s never bothered me. I’ve even forgot my birthday. Many times I’ve wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it’s an honor, to be doing what I’m doing now at my age.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“All organized religions are basically the same.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I grew up Southern Baptist. In the Bible Belt.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I am not into any religions. I have been mostly influenced by Eastern religions – Taoism, the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism. But my belief is not having any beliefs.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I am an actor and this is holding the mirror up to nature, as it were.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve had offers that could’ve made me much richer and much more famous than I am.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve passed up opportunities. I’ve avoided the spotlight. I’ve never been to Academy Awards, didn’t relate to them.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Silence is the most powerful state.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Sam Shepard is a brilliant writer.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I never liked being ordered around – which, of course, was an overreaction. I eventually found out that I didn’t mind being ordered around at all when it was by someone who knew what he was doing.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I don’t blame anyone but myself for the kind of parts I got. To blame external circumstances is absolute folly.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I worked with the best directors – Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I always had a dramatic flair. I’d like to dress up like a cowboy, play make-believe. But I didn’t realize acting was something I had to do until I got to college.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“The soul is an illusion.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve had chances to record albums, which I haven’t done.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“My favorite films are ‘Paris, Texas’ and ‘Repo Man.’”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Nothing is important.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Singing and acting are actually very similar things. Anyone can sing and anyone can be a film actor. All you have to do is learn.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was singing the blues when I was six. Kind of sad, eh?”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I could have made it as a singer, but I went with acting – surrendered to it, in a way.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“You can do stuff onstage that you can’t do offstage. You can be angry as hell and enraged and get away with it onstage, but not off.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“When man began to think he was a separate person with a separate soul, it created a violent situation.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“A friend is somebody who doesn’t lie.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’d love to meet Gandhi. And Christ. I’m sure he’d be interesting. And a lot different than a lot of people would think.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I think any performing artist can do films, or, as a matter of fact, anybody out there in the street can be a film actor with no experience whatsoever if you’ve got a good director.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“What did we play in the Harry Dean Stanton Band? It was old blues and country – all covers. I never wrote anything.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“The first film I ever remember – I think my mother took me to it – was called ‘She Married Her Boss’ with Melvyn Douglas.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was trained on the stage, and I can do stage as well as I can do movies, but I prefer films.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I have nothing to do with anything that happens to me.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I had opportunities to be a lot more successful, but for some reason or other – the way I was particularly genetically wired – I turned down a lot of opportunities.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I could have been a lot more famous and played leading men and everything. For whatever reason, I didn’t go for it.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was offered a series by John Carpenter after I did the movie ‘Christine,’ and I would’ve been a leading man after that. I would have played a private investigator. And I was offered a great deal – I would be involved in the direction, casting, everything, and whatever. It was whatever an actor wants, and I didn’t take it.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Molly Ringwald, she’s a natural talent. Every girl in this country related to that girl.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I was in the Pacific. The Pacific Theater, as they say.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I sang barber shop harmony and sort of got into performing. And it just came naturally. Then, when I was in college after the war, I did a play, ‘Pygmalion,’ by George Bernard Shaw. And from then on, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Fame in itself is, you know… It involves a whole discussion on just that word, ‘fame.’ It’s a power; it’s another degree of power, to be famous. I think it’s obvious: you have more influence the more well-known you are. And, hopefully, it’s righteously used.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I’ve avoided success artfully.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I liked ‘Repo Man.’ Satire.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“Do nothing. Do nothing. Let it happen. Don’t try.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I like to watch ‘Paris, Texas,’ but I have no desire to see it. I did it.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“It’s just so frustrating when you’re in a supporting role because you only get to express a part of yourself.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“To put it mildly, I was just a very late bloomer.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I know I’ve got the ability to bring a sense of menace to the screen. I have that specific competence, and it’s generally kept me working.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I could have been a writer.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
“I had to decide if I wanted to be a singer or an actor. I was always singing. I thought if I could be an actor, I could do all of it.”
― Harry Dean Stanton
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