John Garfield Quotes

I can't talk to a man who bears an undeserved animosity towards ferrets.

Rich, arrogant, lucky, mollycoddled and stupid. That's always people's preconception.

My mother was 18 when I was born. She split with my father when I was 6, and married another man when I was about 7. My mother was about 25, my stepfather was about 26, I'm six or seven, I was looking at them and I knew they were just too young.

People think I'm going to be this really dark human when they meet me.

The bad-boy label is just an assumption.

People have a preconceived notion about who I am and it's interesting. It's like picking who you want to win for the Oscars and not seeing the movie. Before you make a statement about someone, get all the information and see everything before you make a judgment.

Mr. Starr, you’re the expert on unfair questions. If you tell me it’s an unfair question, I’ll withdraw it.

I don't have it in for critics, and I never have.

Some people assume I'm a spoilt trust fund kid who's never had to work for anything, while others think the best of me because of the good experience they had with my grandfather. It's difficult to digest the fact that they may never see me for who I am.

I was never a playboy, you know? But it's easy to say that because it's just a stereotype. 'OK, this boy did college so he must be a playboy.'

It's a pity I have been stereotyped as a villain.

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.

A second wife is hateful to the children of the first; A viper is not more hateful.

The English writer, Charles Lamb, said one day: "I hate that man." "But you don't know him." "Of course, I don't," said Lamb. "Do you think I could possibly hate a man I know?"

Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.

When my brother, Todd [Fisher], was born my father was already with Elizabeth [Taylor]. I was 19 or 20 when I first spent a block of time with him.

Stereotypes abound when there is distance. They are an invention, a pretense that one knows when the steps that would make real knowing possible cannot be taken or are not allowed.

ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.

They who, without any previous knowledge of us, think amiss of us, do us no harm; they attack not us, but the phantom of their own imagination.

People are always saying, 'You're really nice, I thought you were going to be a complete asshole.' I'm getting pretty fed up with it. I just want to say to them, 'Well I could always piss on your head.'

So, to add to a momentous day, I corrected a misconception that my family had held for at least fifteen years and came out to them as straight.

I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness - nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew.

You do know I am my father’s son, right? People don’t talk to me that way and live. (Syn) Oh, like I fear you. Never. Besides, a fight might dislodge whatever has crawled up your sphincter and bring back the much nicer version of you. (Shahara)

That girl--all of them--hated Eleanor before they'd even laid eyes on her. Like they'd been hired to kill her in a past life.

Do not, however, mistake me. It is not to my good friend's heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary, 'tis his honesty that brought upon him the character of a heretic.