78+ Alan Alda Quotes (Charismatic, Versatile And Enduring)

Alan Alda was an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. He was best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the television series M*A*S*H. He was also known for his work as a host of Scientific American Frontiers and for his roles in films such as The Aviator.

Top 10 Alan Alda Quotes

1. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
2. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
3. Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
4. Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
5. Jean Paul Sartre says in "No Exit" that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.
6. It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.
7. Be brave enough to live creatively.
8. 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.
9. ORIGINALITY is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe -- you can't take a taxi.
10. The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart.

Alan Alda Short Quotes

• When people are laughing, they're generally not killing one another.
• The good thing about being a hypocrite is that you get to keep your values.
• Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
• Insanity is just a state of mind.
• It's always better to be wise than to be smart.
• Life is great-I wouldn't know what I'd do without it.
• There's plenty of money to be had. But you also lose your soul.
• Loneliness is everything it's cracked up to be.
• Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.
• I really don't like plays or movies that service propaganda.

Alan Alda Famous Quotes And Sayings

Testosterone Poisoning: … Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. 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.’ — Alan Alda

Don't be upset that it takes a long, long time to find wisdom because nobody knows where wisdom can be found. It tends to break out at unexpected times like a rare virus and mostly people with compassion and understanding are susceptible to it. — Alan Alda

How can I ever hope to communicate something to you unless I get signals back from you that I'm on the right track or that I've started at some place that you're familiar with? — Alan Alda

It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that. — Alan Alda

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in. — Alan Alda

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! — Alan Alda

In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it's a way of experiencing the person that you've lost again. — Alan Alda

At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself. — Alan Alda

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. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn't go back. — Alan Alda

Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You cannot get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful; yourself. — Alan Alda

Everybody's on their toes and focused on what we're about to do, and then there's this moment where you relax because you see that everybody is there to do the best that they can. Everyone opens up to one another right away. That's a terrific thing. I love that about actors. They know how personal this job is. — Alan Alda

If you don't listen deeply, the connection won't take place.... [You have to be] willing to be changed by the person you're listening to, where you're not just waiting for a pause so you can say your thing, but you're actually letting them have an effect on you if they can. — Alan Alda

Our lives depend on good communication. Good communication helps personal relationships, it helps bosses and employees get along better. We rely on it. — Alan Alda

When does she do all this thinking? We're together all the time but she thinks deeply about things and with feeling and she can remember the facts. We've been married 48 years. — Alan Alda

Republicans are as capable of coming up with great ideas and moving this country along as anyone - they just don't do it. — Alan Alda

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won't come in. If you challenge your own, you won't be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others. You'll be a lot less likely to be caught up in bias or prejudice or be influenced by people who ask you to hand over your brains, your soul or your money because they have everything all figured out for you. — Alan Alda

Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. — Alan Alda

I've played a murderer, so certainly I think I can play a Republican. — Alan Alda

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. Why do ordinary people become the target of this curiosity simply by virtue of the fact that other people recognize their names and faces but know nothing else about them? Why do we care what they think, what they wear, what they eat? — Alan Alda

Being mystified is a good beginning, because you won't do what you've done before. — Alan Alda

Musicals are hard for me because I got thrown out of the glee club in high school, because I couldn't sing in tune at the time. I can sing in tune now, but I have to work really hard on it to make sure that I don't exercise one of my great talents, which is the ability to sing in three keys at the same time. — Alan Alda

For humans, flying isn't magic, it's physics. — Alan Alda

What then are doing if not creating a better place together? I think, for me the key has to be, what do I want to create? What is it I want to leave behind? — Alan Alda

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think. — Alan Alda

When your kids turn 13, an alien being invades their bodies and doesn't leave until they're 20. — Alan Alda

life is meaningless unless you bring meaning to it; ... it is up to us to create our own existence. Unless you do something, unless you make something it's as though you aren't there. — Alan Alda

I have a final word of advice to our students. If you work very, very hard, this is the kind of actor, writer and director you may turn out to be, and if you work extra hard, this is the kind of person you may turn out to be. — Alan Alda

Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries — Alan Alda

I try to find out what there is in the character that in a way, you can't put into words. If I could put it into words, then it wouldn't be a performance. And if I do put it into words, as I play it, I start to get boxed in by those words. — Alan Alda

artists try to say things that can't be said. in a fragile net of words, gestures, or colors, we hope to capture a feeling; a taste; a painful longing. but the net is always too porous, and we are left with the sweet frustration of almost knowing, which is teasingly pleasurable. — Alan Alda

I play tennis non-obsessively. I seem to beat people I play a lot or half the time, so I guess I gravitate to people who are as bad as I am. — Alan Alda

For me, I find that even though I've accomplished a few things in my life, looking back on accomplishments doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction. — Alan Alda

We're highly social animals - I'm told by scientists that what makes us different from other animals is an acute social awareness, which is what has made us so successful. — Alan Alda

Be brave enough to live creatively . . . what you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself. — Alan Alda

I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. — Alan Alda

I wouldn't live in California. All that sun makes you sterile. — Alan Alda

Awards can give you a tremendous amount of encouragement to keep getting better, no matter how young or old you are. — Alan Alda

I'm very interested in the improvisation because one of the things I do is to help train scientists to communicate in a better way and more personal way when they're making a presentation, and I use improvisation to do that. — Alan Alda

I've been lucky enough to live through all the things that are supposed to give meaning to our lives, like parenting, grandparenting, art, celebrity. All these things you expect meaning to come from, and sometimes it comes when you're not expecting it. — Alan Alda

Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you. — Alan Alda

There are two things that I get a lot of pleasure from in my life, and that is, doing what I know how to do well - that really makes me happy. The other one, and probably an equal pleasure, is finding out how I can be helpful and then really being helpful. — Alan Alda

I was brought up as a Catholic, and I'm no longer a Catholic. I don't talk about my beliefs too much in public probably because I feel very strongly that it's something personal - more than personal, it's private. — Alan Alda

The one hour live debate in the West Wing that we did was one of the most exciting times for me on stage or on camera, because anything could go wrong. — Alan Alda

During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me. Remarkably, according to what they told me, nearly every inmate in the prison didn't do it. 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. — Alan Alda

And I think belief is one of those things that comes to people in their own way. And just because I believe in something doesn't mean I think that you should. — Alan Alda

The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues. — Alan Alda

If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity. — Alan Alda

War is war and Hell is hell, and if you ask me, War is a lot worse. — Alan Alda

Working on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right. — Alan Alda

I'm in this wonderful position where I can do what interests me. And whatever comes along that interests me, I do. The rest of the time I bother scientists about communicating. — Alan Alda

Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don't ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don't doubt yourself. — Alan Alda

As I am becoming older, the only thing that speeds up is time. — Alan Alda

My relationship with science is as someone who's curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together. — Alan Alda

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. — Alan Alda

People who laugh together generally don't kill each other. — Alan Alda

Whenever you wonder about yourself, look up at the stars swirling around in the heavens and just realize how tiny and puny they are. 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. — Alan Alda

I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of famous made me leery. — Alan Alda

When I studied how to think in school, I was taught that the first rule of logic was that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. 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. — Alan Alda

Life Lessons by Alan Alda

1. Alan Alda teaches us to be open-minded and curious, to be willing to learn and to be humble.
2. He also encourages us to be compassionate and understanding, to be kind and generous, and to be brave and take risks.
3. Finally, he reminds us to be resilient in the face of adversity, to never give up, and to always strive to be the best version of ourselves.