Dirk Benedict Quotes (92 Quotes)

Generally speaking, actors are allowed NO input. Actors are dumb.

We live in an age of experts, and if you are a TV star... it is difficult, if not impossible, to gain respect as a writer of the kind of books I've written or the kind of film I wrote and directed.

We need to continually look within ourselves. Contemplate our inner being and find our own unique voice and then learn to heed it and we will then have the life experience we deserve.

I enjoy writing nonfiction the most because one is limited only by one's imagination. Autobiography is tough.

I maintain you can make a filmTV star out of a can of sardines.

Life: my favorite occupation.

Months of working on The A-Team had not made me happier or more contented. It has challenged my ability to remain so. The hours of waiting, talking and thinking on the set needed to be balanced.

I'm a classic example of what can happen if you follow your inner voice. I was cursed with interests and some talent in many different areas. It confuses people.

The beef, venison and elk vibrations of my first 22 years were still very much controlling the nature of my day-to-day activities. Arthritis was my morning wake-up call, mood swings between ecstasy and despair my daily state of mind, and Scotch my release from it all.

Sadly, there are no rules by which an actor learns his craft. Would that it were that easy. I spent four years studying acting in college and another two years in English Classical training and ended up working a lot on TV.

For thousands of sick and dying people all over the country, cast out of hospitals with their individual predictions of only months left on this planet, Boston was a last hope, a Mecca.

From the very beginning, the primary appeal of macrobiotics for me was that it was something I could try by myself. I had never sought, nor wanted... help in trying to understand the principles of yin and yang.

The best things in life are usually difficult.

If you have talent as a screenwriter, it will out. Nothing succeeds like perseverance. Never give up. Anyway, life never turns out the way you imagine, dream or plan it to. Or hadn't you heard

From dear, dear Gloria Swanson, I learned how to live long, happy and free of health problems. I owe her my life.

I never get involved with the ladies I work with.

Harrison Ford was pretty content as a carpenter who thought it would be nice to work on TV and ended up being the biggest film star in the history of cinema.

I also knew that, although infinitely slower, the only real path to personal health and happiness was through my own slow and painful understanding.

I bought this cabin as a vacation escape some 20 years ago. I knew one day I'd make this my permanent home, a place to raise my children. I feel blessed, I've managed to make my dream come true.

Hollywood... damn well won't hire a writer over 40 unless he made his mark when he was under 30. America worships youth. It is reflected everywhere. And because wisdom can ONLY come with age, America is a very immature, unwise country. As reflected in its films.

Festivals today are driven by female perspective. My film is about heterosexual men over 40. And it was very much alone.

Dialogue is my forte. Whether that is because I am an actor or merely talented in that regard I have no idea. Nor do I care. When I write, I always feel like I am just taking dictation-following the characters around and writing down what they say.

In many ways I wish I wasn't an actor dragging around the baggage from being one so that I could just devote my energies to encouraging people to find their true selves.

Over the years I've had many agents, too many to remember.

A talented writer can write women, men, dogs, pigs. They can write old people, young people. Does a writer have to be insane to write the part of someone insane I know he has to be insane to want to be a writer, but that isn't the point.

You can't leave civilization behind entirely.

At 200 pounds, with a 17-inch neck, a resting pulse of 78, a bench press of 200 pounds, I was very much indeed a normal, All-American male. I carried my sickness within.

Time is money, as they say, and it was never more apropos than on a television show, where a minute is worth about $200!

Many people are shy when it comes to getting out on a dance floor. Dancing is an activity that... reveals your inner self, whether you like it, or know it, or not. It is hard to fake it on a dance floor.

It helps to be able to be alone. 'Cuz writing is done alone, unless you collaborate, but I don't do that. Ask my ex-wife.

Hollywood... a city I was to come back to time and again, in sickness and in health, in success and in failure, with anticipation and with dread.

The trouble with most stage plays nowadays is they are written by people who grew up not reading or seeing the great theatrical literature of the day, but watching network TV. And so they are more like TV sitcoms than stage plays.

If you want to have something to say about the voice or vision of a film, go to Harvard Business School. Become a Studio Exec. But don't become a writer. Or director, for that matter.

It is all about marketing; that is where the real craft comes in. The best actors do not necessarily become the biggest stars. And vice versa.

We played on Sunday nights opposite All in the Family. We were supposed to knock off All in the Family. Well, we didn't. They had a different audience and besides, it's a classic. So in the network's view, we were a failure, even thought we were in the Top 20.

As children get older, they are supposed to gradually stand more and more on their own and eventually completely leave the nest. My boys are definitely starting to do that. Soon I might actually go on a date.

I was an actor. I wanted to act. But... I didn't want to be a movie star. Never had wanted to be a movie star. I was so naive as to assume that anyone who knew me would know that went without saying.

My children are with me morning and night and weekends. Constantly. They are my complete priority, have been, and so they aren't suffering from lack of being with dad.

Movies are movies, television is television.

I loved sitting on my veranda sipping quality scotch, puffing a Cuban cigar and watching Cuba on the horizon, or the oceanic vista. Did this late in the evenings many times.

I was the final word on everything. I wrote and directed. Complete cast approval. Every piece of music. Every edit. Which means I pissed off a lot of people.

I can still fit into my Battlestar Galactica costume!