Paul Newman

A man with no enemies is a man with no character.
– Paul Newman

A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.
– Paul Newman

I had no natural gift to be anything – not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a
director, a painter of garden porches – not anything. So I’ve worked really hard, because
nothing ever came easily to me.
– Paul Newman

It is useless to put on your brakes when you’re upside down.
– Paul Newman

The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films.
– Paul Newman

You can’t be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every
morning: “Holy Christ, whaddya know – I’m still around!” It’s absolutely amazing that I
survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.
– Paul Newman

The problem with getting older is you still remember how things used to be.
– Paul Newman

If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can’t tell who the
sucker is, it’s you.
– Paul Newman

Just when things look darkest, they go black.
– Paul Newman

A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs.
– Paul Newman

I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too. I don’t look at it as
philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community.
– Paul Newman

Of course I know Julie Andrews. She’s the last of the really great broads.
– Paul Newman

Ever since Slap Shot I’ve been swearing more. I knew I had a problem one day when I turned
to my daughter and said, “Would you please pass the f…ing salt?”
– Paul Newman

I check my pulse and if I can find it, I know I’ve got a chance.
– Paul Newman

I picture my epitaph: “Here lies – Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned
brown.”
– Paul Newman

I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There’s no sense even
trying to explain it. I really just can’t watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just
drives me nuts, so I don’t look at anything.
– Paul Newman

I don’t like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but
which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?
– Paul Newman

Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it.
– Paul Newman

Building weapons that we don’t need, don’t work, and aren’t necessary, and have no mission
– that’s not bad politics, that’s robbery.
– Paul Newman

I was terrorized by the emotional requirements of being an actor. Acting is like letting your
pants down; you’re exposed.
– Paul Newman

I’ve repeatedly said that for people as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an
uncommonly good marriage. We are actors, we make pictures – and that’s about all we have
in common. Maybe that’s enough. Wives shouldn’t feel obligated to accompany their
husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with
the neighbourhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have
separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends – and not impose one upon the other.
– Paul Newman

Maybe the best part is that your liver can’t handle those beers at noon anymore.
– Paul Newman, on aging

I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried – tried to be part of his times, tried to help
people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to
extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn’t complacent, who doesn’t cop out.
– Paul Newman

I’ve been accused of being aloof. I’m not. I’m just wary.
– Paul Newman

For those of you who like to scarf your popcorn in the sack, the good news is that Newman’s
Own contains an aphrodisiac.
– Paul Newman

People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.
– Paul Newman

Being on President Nixon’s enemies list was the highest single honor I’ve ever received. Who
knows who’s listening to me now and what government list I’m on?
– Paul Newman

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with
the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in
life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.
– Paul Newman

When you see the right thing to do, you’d better do it.
– Paul Newman

The only way we can give our children the best education in the world and prepare them for
the next century is by funding the programs that serve them.
– Paul Newman

I wasn’t driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting
goods business.
– Paul Newman

Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own
experience.
– Paul Newman

Twenty-five years ago I couldn’t walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can
put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don’t ask me about my
movies and they don’t ask me about my salad dressing because they don’t know who I am.
Am I happy about this? You bet.
– Paul Newman

I would like it if people would think that beyond Newman, there’s a spirit that takes action, a
heart, and a talent that doesn’t come from my blue eyes.
– Paul Newman

You only grow when you are alone.
– Paul Newman

I’m like a good cheese. I’m just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.
– Paul Newman

I keep trying to retire from everything and I’ve discovered that I’ve retired from absolutely
nothing. I was going to get out of the racing business and I’m back in the racing business. I
was going to let somebody else handle all the spaghetti sauce and I’m back in the spaghetti
sauce. I just finished the first play that I’ve done in 35 years, which is like sticking a rifle in
your mouth. So, I don’t seem to be able to retire.
– Paul Newman

To be an actor you have to be a child.
– Paul Newman

Acting isn’t really a creative profession. It’s an interpretative one.
– Paul Newman

Study your craft and know who you are and what’s special about you. Find out what
everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means
don’t do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society.
– Paul Newman

I have an extraordinary attention span. I manage to juggle two or three different ideas at the
same time, and that’s probably, if I have a gift, that’s probably the best gift that’s given me.
– Paul Newman