Eli Wallach

“When you're my age, you'll be glad to be alive. It's a good thing to be alive. You're alive, you're eating, you're sleeping, you're looking at beautiful girls.”

“Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck.”

“As an actor I am, in a way, a thief. I steal from people's lives. I'm a spy.”

“There are three stages of an actor's career. The first is 'Who is Eli Wallach?' The second is 'Get me Eli Wallach.' And the third is 'Get me a young Eli Wallach.'”

“I don't act to live. I live to act.”

“I have a good time when I'm acting, and I'm not a Method actor. I don't believe in it.”

“What do I need a resume for? I'm 92. I've done everything.”

“If you want to be an actor, you should just get a job in a theater. And not just as an actor. You should be a janitor, you should be a script-reader, you should be an usher.”

“I'm a character actor. I have to find a job.”

“I've played more bandits, thieves, killers, warlords, molesters and Mafiosi than you could shake a stick at.”

“I never know what to tell young people when they come up and say, 'Mr. Wallach, what do you suggest for a young actor?' I say, 'I don't know, I'm still trying to get a job!'”

“When there's a gun in the first act, you'll see it in the third act. I've been in movies where it was the other way around. There's a gun in the third act, and you wonder where it was in the first.”