Wallace Shawn Quotes

• I don’t happen to have a sense of humor personally, so I don’t know what’s funny about a character… This happens to be a feature of my life generally.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Funny

  Tags in Sense, Generally

• I choose parts because I don’t want to be embarrassed when the movie comes out. What if my friends were to see the movie? What if my niece or nephew wandered into the theater and saw the movie? I don’t want to be too ashamed of it.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ashamed, Embarrassed

• I am recognized a lot for ‘Clueless,’ but I am recognized a great deal for ‘The Princess Bride.’ I don’t know… maybe everybody who has seen that movie just goes out on the street.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Recognized, Princess

• From being a writer of plays, it was not that surprising that somebody thought of giving me a job as an actor. After I played one part, others came along.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Surprising, Played

• For some reason, people find me funny. It’s quite hard to define why a thought is funny. It’s even harder to define why a person would be funny. It’s a word that I can’t define at all. But whether I know quite what it is or not, I seem to be it.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Define, Harder

• Contrary to the popular misconception, the actor is not necessarily a specialist in imitating or portraying what he knows about other people. On the contrary, the actor may simply be a person who’s more willing than others to reveal some truths about himself.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Specialists, Contrary

• Children, I always think, are just putting on a performance of being naive and not understanding anything. I have worked with children in films, and they’re treated as adults and they just drop the pretense of being children.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Pretense, Naive, Performance

• Before I was 5, I did have a lot of time on my hands. I had no job and really no career, and I spent an awful lot of time listening to records. It was more the classical ones, really – Prokofiev, and I think there was some Mozart in there, and more impressionistic composers like Delius.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Spent, Classical

• After being in one movie, it didn’t seem like that would be my life. I had done several jobs, briefly. I’d been a shipping clerk, I worked in a copy shop, I didn’t think the acting was going to go on and on.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Copy, Acting

• Acting is trying to be absolutely truthful; to get audiences to believe that you are a dean, when, actually, not only are you not the dean, but if you walked into the building they’d probably throw you out. That’s very hard.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Truthful, Throw

• You know, I haven’t written as much as most other writers. Certainly maybe those who keep a more regular schedule accomplish more.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Accomplish, Written

• There’s nothing regular about my life at all, really. I don’t keep a regular schedule and every day is different. It’s all rather chaotic.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Chaotic, Schedule

• ‘The Princess Bride’ is by far the most popular film I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ll ever top it.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Princess, Bride

• My plays have been strange from the beginning, and they never got unstrange.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Plays, Beginning

• The life of an actor can be very enviable.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Actor

• Patriotism is considered to be an emotion a person ought to feel. But why? Why is it nobler to love your own country than to love someone else’s?

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Patriotism, Considered

• In terms of number of movies, I’ve been in an extraordinary amount. If you count only the minutes I’m onscreen, it’s not so long.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Count, Extraordinary

• In real life, every person is the leading man or woman. We don’t think of ourselves as supporting or character actors.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Leading, Supporting

• In my early 20s, I studied history and politics, and I really thought that perhaps I would devote my life to that.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Devote, Studied

• I’m being mocked because I don’t live up to a socially determined view of what other people think a person should look like.

  Wallace Shawn

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mocked

Wallace Shawn (61)

Birth:	12th November, 1943
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Actor, Playwriter

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Births

• 1901 - Ngo Dinh Diem
• 1897 - Pola Negri
• 1975 - Carla Gordon
• 1966 - Roderick Rotol
• 1929 - Sergio Leone

Deaths

• 2010 - Mary Daly
• 1965 - Milton Avery
• 2005 - Will Eisner
• 1946 - William Joyce
• 2012 - Josef Skvorecky