Top 30 Theodore Bikel Quotes

It’s a sad thing to contemplate, but I’m the last surviving cast member of ‘The African Queen.’

No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.

Audiences are audiences.

I am first, and foremost, an actor. That’s what I am. To me, a song is a mini-drama. My musical ability informs the actor as well because it gives me a sense of timing that non-musicians don’t have. So, one hand washes the other.

You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You’re working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you’re working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.

I don’t speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote.

For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.

I’m exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.

Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.

‘Visiting Mr. Green’ is a good play. I enjoy being in it, and I have a wonderful colleague, Aidan deSalaiz, to work with. Audiences like it a lot. What’s not to like?

You can’t expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.

I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.

Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.

You learn more from the flops than from the hits.

After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not – or were not permitted to – read, were given sermons by the few who could.

All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.

I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.

I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.

I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.

On the stage you’re there, it’s live. There’s a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.

There is no role I cannot play except a midget.

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It’s the only thing I haven’t done yet that I would like to.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them – unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

I do prefer the stage. It’s really the granddaddy of them all.

I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?

But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.

Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.