Theodore Bikel Quotes

I know who I am and what I'm doing in my life and what I've accomplished and continue to accomplish as a performer, as a writer, as an artist, as a person, as a human being.

I think that's why I became good at art. It was something that I could do that I could be really proud of.

Behind a remarkable scholar we not infrequently find an average human being, and behind an average artist we often find a very remarkable human being.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

There's a new Mozart, a new Miles Davis, a new Misty Copeland, a new Matisse potentially languishing in a math class somewhere. If we fail to introduce them to art, we fail humanity.

I feel I've been faithful to my convictions and my desires. I've taken small, firm steps and I try to do things as beautiful and artistically as I can.

I'm ultimately drawn to film many kinds of stories if they are sort of about unlocking the secrets of our human potential.

I do big films just to experience personal satisfaction.

I speak for myself... I am here to tell stories. I'm here to be an actor and not a superstar. If, in the process, that ends up happening, great. But that's not my endgoal.

When I go out and talk to people about how unique they are as a human being and that there's a niche for them that they need to follow through on for their lives, it's what I truly believe in.

Once, Pee-wee Herman tweeted a photo of this guitar I made that's shaped like a slice of pizza, and it meant a lot to me. People downplay it, but there's power there, people reaching toward each other and toward truth. Any mechanism, any resource that we can use to further that reach, is part of the human destiny.

We must give individuals the opportunity to show what they are capable of.

I take a lot of pride in my photography.

I have a cult-like following because I exemplify what it is to be a human being.

I've never wanted sympathy votes in anything I do in my life.

An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality.

As an actor, you always look for things that will stretch you and that are different than you are, so that you can surprise yourself, and you want to surround yourself with the highest caliber of people that will make you look good.

I succeeded in simply attending at the birth of all my works.

I think of the self-actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away. The average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capabilities.

Success for me will be where the body of work I've done afforded me the opportunity to be as good as I can be, and to explore myself and to see what I'm capable of.

The greatness of work is inside man.

If life is a blank canvas and all people are artists, the big challenge we all face may be expressed this way: Will we ultimately produce something approaching a masterpiece, an acceptable but not particularly memorable work of art, or a creation that wouldn't even be purchased at a yard sale?

If you have a voice, sing; but if you have good arms, then go in for dancing.

You're only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft.

My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.