Boris Becker Quotes

I was a dozy boy; I'd like to have been like James Dean, but I was more Arthur Askey - pathetically rebellious in a cheeky, chappy sort of way.

Actually, the person I related to was James Dean. I grew up with the Dean thing. Rebel Without A Cause had a very powerful effect on me.

Steve McQueen was from a time when you didn't know every little dirty thing about our public figures. He and James Dean were very mysterious, archetypal American heroes.

I'd say James Dean is someone that's really inspired me. Just the fact that he did only three movies before he died at such a young age, and yet everyone knows who he is. It really blows my mind.

There's a wealth of information on James Dean, and everybody has an opinion on him. James Dean made some kind of impression on everybody.

I was such a punk.

I myself am a great James Dean fan. He had this aura and enigma about him.

To be honest, I've made a game out of trying to live through my James Dean, Janis Joplin, Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison period, those demons that we all have that we're either successful or not at making work for us rather than destroy us.

A lot of people in my generation have dared to ask questions like, 'Who is James Dean?' And I can't imagine asking a question like that, just because it's been ingrained in me since I was so young.

I'm not James Dean. And no one else is, either.

You gotta live life. You gotta enjoy life. I mean, I don't live on the edge.

I remember being really young - being 13 or 14 - when I first was really excited about punk rock as an idea, and I was like, 'Don't ever not be punk. Don't ever not be punk.' Telling that to myself, I guess it was like self-defense against the scary world around me.

I like the legend behind him. James Dean symbolizes the young actor's dream. He struggled to get into Hollywood. He shot to fame at the age of 24 but only got to star in three films. It's kind of a fantasy of what could have been.

I love the nostalgic feel of the '80s and, oh, I love Winona Ryder so much. I was such a huge fan of hers growing up, so breathing the same air as her was an honor for sure.

What if we choose not to do the things we are supposed to do? The principal gain is a sense of an authentic act - and an authentic life. It may be a short one, but it is an authentic one, and that's a lot better than those short lives full of boredom. The principal loss is security. Another is respect from the community. But you gain the respect of another community, the one that is worth having the respect of.

Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no

What kind of idea are you? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accomodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? – The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world.

...life is all about chances. You might be safer not taking any. But playing it totally safe means you're only existing. Not living. I want to live.

I aspire to be Jack Nicholson. I love his every single mannerism. I used to try and be him in virtually everything I did, I don't know why. I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was about 13, and I dressed like him. I tried to do his accent. I did everything like him. I think it kind of stuck with me.

As the seconds of our lives are ticking away, you have to realize that life needs to be an adventure.

I guess he was such an open, emotional vessel that I think he tapped into human nature, so it just left people wondering what would have happened. I think James Dean would be 83 today. He could be here, what would he be doing?

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!

When we stop taking risks, we stop living.

Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.

Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different.