47 Quotes by Walter Matthau

It’s very easy to live here. You’re anonymous here. Nobody knows who you are.

When I was about eighteen, I saw myself as a rather sensitive, delicate, poetic, romantic figure. And then I got into the Civilian Conservation Corps and into the army, and I started smoking and drinking and being tough and getting muscles, and I had a whole different image of myself.

I was playing Russell Long, the senator from Louisiana. I had 12 speech teachers watching me. All the other passengers on the airplane were speech teachers, and every time I got it wrong, one of the speech teachers would jump up and correct it.

Doing a good play on the stage is like eating a good meal at home - assuming your wife is a great cook or that she's hired a great cook.

I don't know how you can tell a good actor in the movies. I really don't. I think you simply just do the part and hope to God that the director has a good cutter and a good editor, and it'll all get cut and put together so that you look good in it.

I still think I'm 28. I'm 73. I think I'm 28, though, except that I won't get into a fight with anybody because I just had a pacemaker put in.

I lay 11-10 because I know the bookie needs that 5 percent that I give him. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to make a living and go down to Florida with his family.

The only guy that was ever affected by climactic conditions in his acting was Kirk Douglas. He did a superb job in 'Lonely Are the Brave' because we were shooting that picture up at about 12,000 feet, and the rarefied atmosphere sapped him of any energy or strength that he had. That was his best performance.

People say, 'When are you going to do serious stuff?' I look at them as though they were crazy. My serious stuff is my comedy. That's how I make my points.