Top 40 Norman Lloyd Quotes

Actors are, in a sense, like athletes. They’ve got to stretch once in a while.

With Hitchcock, you work with a script, and you stick to it.

I very much admired Lancaster. George Clooney reminds me of him today. Not all the macho, swinging around that Burt used to do, but the courage. You know where you stand with men like that.

You know I’ve never worked without a script before, but with Apatow, it’s all improvisation. He calls out a premise, and you have to adapt.

I’m very fond of Amy Schumer. I think she’s terrific, an enormous talent.

I loved ‘Modern Family!’ It was sort of the precursor to ‘Trainwreck,’ to that character. But I loved it. I had a great time doing it.

I move slowly, and I used to move fast. I miss that.

As far as ‘St. Elsewhere’ goes, I just loved that show.

If I go to England, they know I’m not an Englishman, but most Americans think I’m English.

I loved working with Renoir on ‘The Southerner.’ Oh, I loved it! I particularly loved when he had a scene with a cow going through a garden, and he wanted a little dog to come and bark at it and chase it out.

Everyone’s looking for who’s hot. What about looking for who’s good?

People get ideas of how to live or not to live from what you do on television.

The writing was vastly superior to almost anything that was on the air. It’s one of the great shows. It was an important show… ‘St. Elsewhere’ was one of the great shows in the history of television.

I used to watch Babe Ruth for 50 cents. Now, baseball tickets are $400!

I think if you allow yourself to mope and feel sorry for yourself, it can take years off your life.

There were little Charlie Chaplins that you would wind up, and they would walk. I remember vividly. I was sitting in the high chair with the little tray in front of me. My parents would wind it up, and it would walk to me.

Karl Malden! A dear, dear, dear friend. I loved Karl. He was great.

I was clearly brought into the whole thing about acting by my mother. She loved the theater. She had a very pleasant singing voice, which she used to sing for her ladies’ club.

I imagine I was supposed to become a lawyer or something. But this was the Depression; the lawyers I saw were all driving cabs. So I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to be badly off anyway, I might as well be badly off in the theater, where you get used to it.’

The Depression was remarkable because you had nothing, and the salaries, when you got a job, were very small. But you could do anything. You see, a donut was ten cents. A cup of coffee was a nickel. That was lunch, with an apple. And I would be playing a lead on a Broadway show on that kind of diet.

If you’re in the groove, you get something back from the audience that is so exciting and rewarding that no film or television work can possibly compete.

We in New York were very poor in the depths of the Depression – but I must say, that was the best time of my life.

Renoir had a strong feeling about his fellow soldiers. He’d never disrespect them by putting the war down.

There’s a conflict between what’s in your mind and what’s in your body.

My family were Conservative Jews. My parents were both born in this country, but my father grew up on the Lower East Side, and my mother was born and raised in Harlem when there was a large Jewish ‘colony’ there. Eventually, they moved to Jersey City to get away from New York.

Peter Weir is remarkable. He can do anything.

You must be active; you must be positive, even if things don’t go the way you want them to.

I was playing good tennis up until 100.

I’m a pure spirit, ha ha ha!

I eat meat, poultry and fish in proper proportion – nothing to excess.

I always felt it was necessary to keep up some kind of communication with other people.

An actor can grow stale in a bad part. Actors grow stale, generally, because there’s no demand on them.

Some of the movies I did – well, you have to feed your family.

I’m very proud of the people with whom I’ve worked. It’s an amazing collection that just by happenstance happened.

When I think back on it, it’s amazing what happens to us as we move out into the world.

I was in my second year at NYU. I knew what I wanted to do, and I just walked out of college. So, from the age of 17, I’ve been able to do what I wanted, and that makes for a kind of contentment, a fairly pleasant demeanor.

I have never had a better working experience than ‘St. Elsewhere.’ It’s a supreme show.

The Jews are an artistic people. It’s clear from the music, the actors, the writers. They are just artists. In the early part of the 20th century, when they first came over, they had no money, but they still went to theater. The theater and education were the two biggest things in their lives.

You were taught how to do the things you needed to do. Dance, speech, fencing. They groomed people. If you were in a film, and the script wasn’t working for you, they brought in screenwriters and fixed the scripts.

Connie Bennett, the guys used to stake her, she was so good.