Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.
ALAN ALDADon’t be upset that it takes a long, long time to find wisdom because nobody knows where wisdom can be found.
More Alan Alda Quotes
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What works for me is working out when it’s useful to use that anger.
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I have thought about punching people out. Sometimes, I’ve thought, ‘Why don’t I just act on that impulse?’ But then, I’ve never hit anybody in anger. Hey! I’ve never hit anybody for fun.
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As an artist, as an actor, as a writer, you have to use what’s personal to you. You have to be personal about your work; otherwise, it doesn’t ring true.
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I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I’ll even ‘hari-kari’ if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!
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No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
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I’ve sat looking down into a volcano that could blow at any moment; I’ve helped catch a shark and several rattlesnakes;
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What I can’t completely understand is most other people’s fascination with what the famous among us do with their lips and the rest of their bodies.
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But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’
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Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah.
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When I’m writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer.
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They’re supposed to be gigantic explosions and they’re just these insignificant little dots. If you step back from things far enough you realize how important and powerful you are.
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I really don’t like plays or movies that service propaganda.
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Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe – you can’t take a taxi.
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I was brought up as a Catholic, and I’m no longer a Catholic.
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War is war and Hell is hell, and if you ask me, War is a lot worse.
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For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff.
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I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup.
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That last note, “in the same respect,” says a lot. As soon as you change the frame of reference, you’ve changed the truthiness of a once immutable fact.
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Begin challenging your own assumptions.
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I’m in the real world, some people try to steal from me, and I stop them, frequently, take them to court. I love a good lawsuit. It’s fun.
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Insanity is just a state of mind.
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So every day till the end of this campaign, Ill answer any question anyone has on government, but if you have a question on religion, please, go to church.
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During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me.
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I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn’t know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
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Several thousand people had been locked up unjustly and, by an incredible coincidence, all in the same prison. On the other hand, they knew an awful lot about how to knife somebody.
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I find myself going to places where I really have no business, speaking to these people in a whole other field that I have no extensive knowledge of. But I do it very often because it scares me.
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