Either you’re growing or you’re decaying; there’s no middle ground. If you’re standing still, you’re decaying.
ALAN ARKINEither you’re growing or you’re decaying; there’s no middle ground. If you’re standing still, you’re decaying.
ALAN ARKINHollywood is a strange place. The class structure here is more rigid than almost anyplace I’ve ever experienced. It’s made more difficult by the fact that it’s constantly changing.
ALAN ARKINCreativity means learning where the rules exist, and then breaking them! Saying, “It’s better this way.” But you have to know the rules in order to break them with any grace.
ALAN ARKINI suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can’t do.
ALAN ARKINI gotta keep busy. I’m not happy unless I’m working on two, three things.
ALAN ARKINMarriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.
ALAN ARKINThere’s a familiarity that sometimes shocks and annoys the hell out of me.
ALAN ARKINIt keeps it more of a surprise. I don’t feel like it has to be a mystery.
ALAN ARKINI had a bunch of lean years where I had to do things, a lot of which I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about.
ALAN ARKINI don’t believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
ALAN ARKINI want to feel sympathetic and close to others, not opposed to them.
ALAN ARKINMost of the time, I’ve been really fortunate to work with people who are really fun to work with.
ALAN ARKINA product is most easily sold when it has an identity. So they wrap you all up and put a label on you.
ALAN ARKINYou never know what class you belong to unless you’re one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time.
ALAN ARKINThe ancient Vedas – the oldest Hindu philosophy – and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that’s true, there’s no such thing as a past or a future – it’s all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future.
ALAN ARKINBut one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not.
ALAN ARKIN