Quotes by Carroll O'Connor

• I enjoyed in every way my 12 years of playing Archie, and I wasn't personally sad about finishing a long job.
• Millions of people thought Archie was a happy hero.
• I have heard show business characterized as a refuge for childlike persons in flight from all things harsh and real.
• Vulgar and obscene, the papers run rumors daily about people in show business, tales of wicked ways and witless affairs.
• Those offers come in now and again. They're not knocking down my door. I'm only an old character actor, and I'm not needed.
• The wages of pedantry is pain.
• The reviewer is a singularly detested enemy because he is, unlike the hapless artist, invulnerable.
• Talent can be developed, gift is God-given. But artists have both.
• Some people thought we were presenting Archie as a false character. President Nixon thought we were making a fool out of a good man.
• Sheer flattery got me into the theater. Flattery always works with me, particularly the flattery of women.
• One irreducible residual of 38 years in the business is the number of lasting, loving friendships I have made.
• Not all celebrities are dunces.
• My Irish derivation has nothing to do with me. Why should it?
• We don't really need reviewers, just first-night reporters who will tell us faithfully whether or not the audience liked the show.
• It was a lack of system that made the '30s Depression as inevitable as all others previously suffered.
• It seems that entertainment is what most excites us and what we value above everything else.
• In a capitalist society, persons who create capital, like Michael Eisner, are given the staggering rewards.
• I've run into some S.O.B. directors, but I gave them back as good as I got.
• I'm lucky. Lord, I'm lucky.
• I do talk less now because the sound of my voice saying over and over the things I said years ago embarrasses and depresses me. Why do I say the same things over and over?
• Half the pictures directed by men of reputation fail.
• Even a true artist does not always produce art.
• Both my brothers became physicians and I, of course, wandered into a business where the undisciplined are welcome.
• All in the Family was intellectual; it was art.
• My professional life in Hollywood has been filled with joy and laughter.