Keith Olbermann Quotes

A lot of people said I was a rebel. I wasn't.

People look at me, they know I've appeared in costume dramas and they automatically assume I must be a Tory, I must be a certain type of person. Not a lot of people would think that I spent most of my early years totally rebelling against anything I could, getting suspended from school, going on demonstrations. I was a pretty difficult teenager.

I think there's a sort of satisfaction in defying people's expectations.

Whatever is conventional, I am the opposite. So if you want to walk in a straight line, I am going to walk in zigzags. If you want to throw a 1-2, I'll throw a 2-1.

I'm not scary. It's scary for people to see someone being nonconformist.

The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.

I'm not looking to shock anyone.

I am not much about rules, I like to break 'em and don't like to make 'em.

I felt early on I wasn't going to be a respectable citizen.

I have worked really hard to defy categorization, to break down a taxonomy whenever it comes my way.

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?

I think of myself as unconventional, I guess. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.

I just get really bored with sticking to the norm and having the proper conservative image. That's just so not me.

Throughout my entire life, I constantly tried to fight normality. I hate it. I hate the idea of it. I hate routine. I hate anything that feels remotely regular or right.

It's never popular among young people to be part of the establishment.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.

At a certain point, to remain slightly tangential to wherever I was became a way of 'being Tony': by not being anything that everyone else was.

When I was younger, I just thought that my plans were probably going to be more exciting than my parents' plans or the establishment. I sort of got by on being a little bit of a rebel.

I hate this image of me as a prim Edwardian. I want to shock everyone.

I love playing outsiders, I always do.

That's a difficult question, because to consider yourself a rebel is sort of ridiculous.

I look like a sweet, corn-fed kid. My roles are my rebellion.

It's important to be unconventional.

I spent a lot of my career fighting coaches. When coaches told me don't shoot, I'd shoot anyway.

I got a rebel side in me, but I'm not mean!