Top 30 David Carradine Quotes

My role in kung fu – in the art of kung fu, not the series – is not as a practitioner. My role is that of an evangelist, which is an entirely different thing.

Quentin Tarantino doesn’t beat Hal Ashby, and he’s one of my favorite directors. Quentin is incredible.

I’m like a renegade and that rubs people wrong.

I’ve always known whether I’m great. Or not.

I did get to hang out with my dad for a little while. I went with him to summer stock. I watched him be a real king of the world. He’d ship out as a star in summer stock. He sometimes directed the shows. I learned a lot from him – not just about acting, but about everything, how to handle a woman.

Kung fu: You’ve got to spend your whole life at it before you’re kung fu.

I think people are a little surprised sometimes at the level on which I actually talk. I don’t talk like Caine. And every once in a while, somebody is surprised because I smoke and I drink. But I don’t feel that is a contradiction.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn’t do that. I just started doin’ it in front of an audience and had to deliver.

Because you know how you say I’ve got to really get down and really do some training and then of course, you never do or you do it for a couple of weeks and slough it back off again but I’m being forced to do something that I really want to do and I loved it.

I went to 17 different schools when I was a kid. Every time I went to school, no matter what I talked like, it was always from the wrong place.

I remember when I did the pilot, and I though no network is going to want to do this. How could that happen? A half Chinese guy walking the old west that doesn’t fire one gun and never gets on a horse?

I’m analytical as an actor, and one of the things Quentin did was free me from that.

But, Tarantino has seen all of my movies. He’s seen my good stuff, he’s seen my bad stuff, he’s seen the ones I directed, he’s read my autobiography. There’s an awful lot of things he knows about me, all of which I think had something to do with his casting.

I was involved in a web cartoon of Kung Fu with WB a few years back.

It’s weird, because everywhere I go, people yell, ‘Grasshopper!’ or ‘Bill!’ but down there in Mexico or Colombia or anywhere in South America or most of Europe, people will yell, ‘Serpent’s Egg!’ And I’ll go, ‘Wow, man, these people are really hip.’

I was a truant. And if you’re a truant in New York City, the truant officer gets after you, and then you get into the courts, and then things happen which they really shouldn’t. But I ended up in a very sweet reform school. It’s the place you go to if you’ve got a really kind judge.

Quentin is very organic; there was no way that he was going to put someone else’s hand in there and anyway, my hands are kind of famous. It seemed right.

It was pretty extensive – we worked out 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, which I think is more than anybody in the Olympics. I thought well I don’t need this, the girls need it, but it was a gift.

I like Bill a lot. As Bill is presented, I mean you don’t ever see Bill blow her head off? You know? And I think what Quentin has done is he created a monster.

I’ve never been in prison. I’ve been in jail a lot. But I’ve never actually been sentenced to anything.

In the second installment, I pretty much dominate the show. Somehow or another, though, I manage to apparently dominate the first show pretty well with just my voice and my hands and a shot of my boots kicking cartridges out of the way.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn’t do that.

‘Kung Fu’ was never cancelled; I just left. I decided I had enough of it, and I thought I should do a movie right away, because I think when you leave a television series, it’s important that you establish the fact that you’re a movie actor really quickly, or you might never get that chance.

There are wonderful films that become studio films, but they’re conceived independently. That’s where the action is. ‘Being John Malkovich’ is a great example of a picture you wouldn’t think the studios would want, and it turns out to be a movie that touches everybody’s heart.

The one thing about doing all those movies and all that television is I know what I’m doing. And I can do what Sean Connery can do. I can do what Clint can do. People even say I look a little like Clint. But that’s just because I’m skinny and tall and old. With a receding hairline.

Well I would never say to anybody that Warren Beatty got fired, but uh, I think he and Quentin fell out of love, and I think Warren told Quentin to hire me for the film.

You know, I’ve never actually really believed that death is inevitable. I just think it’s a rumor.

There’s an alternative. There’s always a third way, and it’s not a combination of the other two ways. It’s a different way.

Tarantino is the coolest damn guy; he’s just so much fun to work with. He might be the best director I’ve ever worked with. He just seems to know how to do it and he knows how to make you feel good about it. He’s having so much fun you start having fun. You can’t help it.

With my father, there was one baseball game, one football game, one fishing trip. You got one of everything. And that was all you got. It was enough, though, and I adored him. He was a god to me.