John Wayne quotes:

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  • Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.

  • Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.

  • I'd read up on the history of our country and I'd become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

  • Jesus Christ! I would crawl over the mountains of Beverly Hills on my hands and knees if I could do a movie with Doris Day!

  • I'm not the sort to back away from a fight. I don't believe in shrinking from anything. It's not my speed; I'm a guy who meets adversities head on.

  • Paul Newman would have been a much more important star if he hadn't always tried to be an anti-hero, to show the human feet of clay.

  • Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.

  • Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.

  • In westerns, you meet a hardy bunch of characters. There is no jealousy on such pictures.

  • I stick to simple themes. Love. Hate. No nuances. I stay away from psychoanalyst's couch scenes. Couches are good for one thing.

  • Out here, due process is a bullet.

  • I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

  • True Grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done. No moral man can have peace of mind if he leaves undone what he knows he should have done.

  • Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid.

  • True grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done.

  • I was sure I'd set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth - that I hadn't set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if 'The Big Trail' had been a success and launched me as a star.

  • Talk low, talk slow and don't say too much.

  • If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'

  • Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you -- either by direct taxes, or by the cruelly indirect tax of inflation.

  • Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity - and I don't mean simple - it'll be good, and the public will know it.

  • Every country in the world loved the folklore of the West--the music, the dress, the excitement, everything that was associated with the opening of a new territory. It took everybody out of their own little world. The cowboy lasted a hundred years, created more songs and prose and poetry than any other folk figure. The closest thing was the Japanese samurai. Now, I wonder who'll continue it.

  • I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

  • My folks always let me go to the movies every Saturday. We were really motion-picture goers.

  • I've loved reading all my life.

  • Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be.

  • Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave?

  • I want to play a real man in all my films, and I define manhood simply: men should be tough, fair, and courageous, never petty, never looking for a fight, but never backing down from one either.

  • There's right and there's wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you're dead as a beaver hat.

  • I drink for comradeship, and when I drink for comradeship, I don't bother to keep count.

  • I am an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, flag waving patriot.

  • Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

  • Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.

  • Life is tough pilgrim, it is even tougher if you're stupid

  • Life is tough, but if you are stupid, it's a lot tougher.

  • General MacArthur told me, "You represent the American serviceman better than the American serviceman himself."

  • Male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. With female menopause you gain weight and get hot flashes. Male menopause ? you get to date young girls and drive motorcycles.

  • Get off your horse and drink your milk.

  • I never trust a man that doesn't drink.

  • Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to Hollywood scene in 1928. So did I. We're both a little weather-beaten, but we're still here and plan to be around for a whole lot longer.

  • I'm an American actor. I work with my clothes on. I have to. Riding a horse can be pretty tough on your legs and elsewheres.

  • When the road looks rough ahead, remember the 'Man upstairs' and the word HOPE. Hang onto both and 'tough it out'.

  • Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.

  • Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.

  • TRUE Courage is when you are scared to death and STILL saddle up and ride in!

  • All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be some place else.

  • When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it.

  • I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That's why I started in with the props.

  • Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.

  • Screw ambiguity. Perversion and corruption masquerade as ambiguity. I don`t trust ambiguity. John Wayne

  • I play John Wayne in every part regardless of the character, and I've been doing okay, haven't I?

  • I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to the point of responsibility. I don`t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.

  • I read someplace that I used to make B-pictures. Hell, they were a lot farther down the alphabet than that . . . but not as far down as R and X. I think any man who makes an X-rated picture ought to be made to take his own daughter to see it.

  • Any man who'd make an X-rated movie ought to have to take his daughter to see it.

  • If you can't be thankful for what you have, be thankful for what you have escaped.

  • I never have really become accustomed to the 'John.' Nobody ever really calls me John... I've always been Duke or Marion or John Wayne. It's a name that goes well together, and it's like one word - John Wayne.

  • I suppose my best attribute, if you want to call it that, is sincerity. I can sell sincerity because that's the way I am.

  • All the screen cowboys behaved like real gentlemen. They didn't drink, they didn't smoke. When they knocked the bad guy down, they always stood with their fists up, waiting for the heavy to get back on his feet. I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.

  • Get off your butt and join the Marines!

  • When I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist, pretty much to the left. But not when I left the university. I quickly got wise. I'd read about what had happened to Russia in 1917 when the Communists took over.

  • Getting rid of a man without hurting his masculinity is a problem. "Get out" and "I never want to see you again" might sound like a challenge. If you want to get rid of a man, I suggest saying, "I love you. . . . I want to marry you. . . . I want to have your children." Sometimes they leave skid marks.

  • The reason there are so many stupid people is because it's illegal to kill them.

  • I didn't vote for him, but he's my President, and I hope he does a good job.

  • Very few of the so-called liberals are open-minded.... They shout you down and won't let you speak if you disagree with them.

  • I have found a certain type calls himself a Liberal...Now I always thought I was a Liberal. I came up terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a Right-Wing Conservative Extremist, when I listened to everybody's point of view that I ever met, and then decided how I should feel. But this so-called new Liberal group, Jesus, they never listen to your point of view...

  • I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.

  • A friend of mine told me to shoot first and ask questions later. I was going to ask him why, but I had to shoot him.

  • Women have the right to work wherever they want, as long as they have the dinner ready when you get home.

  • I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people ... I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] ... Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

  • Life is getting up one more time than you've been knocked down.

  • My hope and prayer is that everyone know and love our country for what she really is and what she stands for.

  • A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job.

  • I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please.

  • The hyphenated American is ridiculous. But that's what we have to put up with. I think that any person that's in the United States is better off here than they would be where they came from.

  • A man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him.

  • A long time ago, I made me a rule. I let people do what they want to do.

  • A man ought to do what he thinks is right

  • I don't have to assert my virility. I think my career has shown that I'm not exactly a pantywaist. But I do take pride in my work, even to the point of being the first one on the set in the morning. I'm a professional.

  • The guy you see on the screen isn't really me. I'm Duke Morrison, and I never was and never will be a film personality like JOHN WAYNE . I know him well. I'm one of his closest students. I have to be. I made a living out of him.

  • Watergate is a sad and tragic incident in our history. They were wrong, dead wrong, those men at Watergate. Men abused power, but the system still works. Men abused money, but the system still works. Men lied and perjured themselves, but the system still .

  • I've always followed my father's advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.

  • You're short on ears and long on mouth.

  • Life's hard. It's even harder when you're stupid.

  • Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let's go! We're burnin' daylight!

  • In my acting, I have to identify with something in the character. The big tough boy on the side of right - that's me. Simple themes. Same me from the nuances. All I do is sell sincerity and I've been selling the hell out of that ever since I started.

  • I've had three wives, six children and six grandchildren and I still don't understand women

  • I am a demonstrative man, a baby picker-upper, a hugger and a kisser--that's my nature.

  • My favorite four-letter words are 'hard work'.

  • Courage is being afraid and going on the journey anyhow.

  • You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman.

  • Don't ever for a minute make the mistake of looking down your nose at westerns. They're art - the good ones, I mean. They deal in life and sudden death and primitive struggle, and with the basic emotions - love, hate, and anger - thrown in. We'll have westerns films as long as the cameras keep turning. The fascination that the Old West has will never die. And as long as people want to pay money to see me act, I'll keep on making westerns until the day I die.

  • I believe humor nullifies violence.

  • When you stop fighting, that's death.

  • Never apologize, mister, it's a sign of weakness.

  • I'm a greedy old man. Life's been good to me, and I want some more of it.

  • I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up this drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror.

  • Give the American people a good cause, and there's nothing they can't lick.

  • Wayne: I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them ..... the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves. .... I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation .... seems to be what the socialists are working for now -- to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave ..... But you can't whine and bellyache 'cause somebody else got a break and you didn't, like those Indians are. We'll all be on a reservation soon if the socialists keep subsidizing groups like them with our tax money.

  • We're burnin' daylight.

  • One look that works is better than twenty lines of dialogue.

  • We brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out.

  • America is the land of freedom and that's the way I enjoy living.

  • Thanking people is dangerous business. A name always slips your mind.

  • I never killed a man I didn't have to.

  • There's been no top authority saying what marijuana does to you. I really don't know that much about it. I tried it once but it didn't do anything to me.

  • Out here a man settles his own problems.

  • I'm the stuff men are made of!

  • Well, there are some things a man just can't run away from.

  • A man's got to do what a man's got to do.

  • It rankles me when somebody tries to force somebody to do something.

  • Nobody ever saw a cowboy on the psychiatrist's couch.

  • I never shot nobody I didnt have to.

  • The fire is not discriminating. It burns anything in its path for whatever reason.

  • Let's say I hope that I appeal to the more carefree times in a person's life rather than to his reasoning adulthood. I'd just like to be an image that reminds someone of joy rather than of the problems of the world.

  • Republic. I like the sound of the word.

  • I would think somebody like Jane Fonda and her idiot husband would be terribly ashamed and saddened that they were a part of causing us to stop helping the South Vietnamese. Now look what's happening. They're getting killed by the millions. Murdered by the millions. How the hell can she and her husband sleep at night?

  • Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be. I was proud when President Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor, which we should have done long ago, because I think we're helping a brave little country defend herself against Communist invasion. That's what I tried to show in The Green Berets and I took plenty of abuse from the critics.

  • I would like to be remembered, well... the Mexicans have a phrase, 'Feo fuerte y formal'. Which means; he was ugly, strong and had dignity.

  • We built your fort. We will not have it used against us.

  • Healthy, lusty sex is wonderful.

  • Men forget everything; women remember everything.

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