Carroll OConnor Quotes (34 Quotes)

Those offers come in now and again. They're not knocking down my door. I'm only an old character actor, and I'm not needed.

The wages of pedantry is pain.

I have heard show business characterized as a refuge for childlike persons in flight from all things harsh and real.

Conventional show-biz savvy held that Americans hated to be the objects of satire.

I'm lucky. Lord, I'm lucky.

I hate pride, but if I were going to be proud of anything it would have to be something I'd done myself. Race pride is kind of stupid.

In the Heat of the Night.

Sheer flattery got me into the theater. Flattery always works with me, particularly the flattery of women.

Not all celebrities are dunces.

Vulgar and obscene, the papers run rumors daily about people in show business, tales of wicked ways and witless affairs.

My professional life in Hollywood has been filled with joy and laughter.

It was a lack of system that made the '30s Depression as inevitable as all others previously suffered.

I never heard Archie's kind of talk in my own family. My father was a lawyer and was in partnership with two Jews, who with their families were close to us. There were black families in our circle of friends. My father disliked talk like Archie's -- he called it lowbrow.

In a capitalist society, persons who create capital, like Michael Eisner, are given the staggering rewards.

I've run into some S.O.B. directors, but I gave them back as good as I got.

We don't really need reviewers, just first-night reporters who will tell us faithfully whether or not the audience liked the show.

Talent can be developed, gift is God-given. But artists have both.

In the final phase of cocaine intoxication, when suicide is likely, the victim cannot save himself by an effort of will. He has lost the power.

Millions of people thought Archie was a happy hero.

I enjoyed in every way my 12 years of playing Archie, and I wasn't personally sad about finishing a long job.

My Irish derivation has nothing to do with me. Why should it?

One irreducible residual of 38 years in the business is the number of lasting, loving friendships I have made.

People see Archie Bunker everywhere. Particularly girls-poor girls, rich girls, all kinds of girls are always coming up to me and telling me that Archie is just like their dad.

Both my brothers became physicians and I, of course, wandered into a business where the undisciplined are welcome.

All in the Family was intellectual; it was art.

I think he Archie Bunker is in every man my age, no matter what he does, whether he's a vice president at Chase or a cab driver.

It seems that entertainment is what most excites us and what we value above everything else.

The reviewer is a singularly detested enemy because he is, unlike the hapless artist, invulnerable.

God don't make no mistakes. That's how He got to be God. (as Archie Bunker)

Nations have come under the control of haters and fools.

I do talk less now because the sound of my voice saying over and over the things I said years ago embarrasses and depresses me. Why do I say the same things over and over?

Even a true artist does not always produce art.

Half the pictures directed by men of reputation fail.

Some people thought we were presenting Archie as a false character. President Nixon thought we were making a fool out of a good man.