Tony Curtis Quotes & Sayings

#1. It's such a human condition, whether you're a great track star or a great knitting person or you paint watercolors - someone knows who you are.

Tony Curtis

#2. Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.

Tony Curtis

#3. We often don't think of them, we think of the great wars and the great battles, but what about losing a son or a daughter, or a girl losing her husband or vice versa? I think of the people who never got the chance to have the opportunities I had.

Tony Curtis

#4. On kissing Marilyn Monroe: It's like kissing Hitler.

Tony Curtis

#5. You wanna know the secret of life? The saliva of young girls.

Tony Curtis

#6. Every movie I've been in has ended up on television.

Tony Curtis

#7. I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I'm so depressed, or life is terrible.

Tony Curtis

#8. I want the public to know that it will be an honor for me to meet them and spend a few special moments with all those who helped me through my filmed career.

Tony Curtis

#9. Women are beginning to lose their identity. They have jumped with teeth clenched, fists braced and eyes aglow, into the competitive man's world. They're losing the vibrant quality of femininity, the aura of mystery.

Tony Curtis

#10. I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.

Tony Curtis

#11. But my longevity is due to my good timing.

Tony Curtis

#12. The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.

Tony Curtis

#13. The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.

Tony Curtis

#14. I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.

Tony Curtis

#15. Even on a personal note, my dressing table downstairs is crowded with things, like a mini landscape. It's a city with buildings and towers and roads. There's a pool and a little park. When I move something around it becomes a different tableau.

Tony Curtis

#16. I wouldn't be caught dead marring a woman old enough to be my wife.

Tony Curtis

#17. Joe: We can't just walk out on her without saying goodbye. Jerry: What? Since when? You usually walk out and leave 'em with nothing but a kick in the teeth. Joe: That's when I was a saxophone player. Now I'm a millionaire.

Tony Curtis

#18. Yes I'm still working, but my life's no longer filled with it.

Tony Curtis

#19. I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.

Tony Curtis

#20. I look at everything in an artistic way.

Tony Curtis

#21. Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.

Tony Curtis

#22. They gave me away as a prize once - a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She'd hoped for second prize - a new stove.

Tony Curtis

#23. At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.

Tony Curtis

#24. I've just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.

Tony Curtis

#25. I can't sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.

Tony Curtis

#26. When I was in bed with Marilyn Monroe, I was never sure before, during or after, where her mind was.

Tony Curtis

#27. Hollywood ... the most sensational merry-go-around ever built.

Tony Curtis

#28. I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.

Tony Curtis

#29. I don't know what organically grown chickens are; I've never seen one.

Tony Curtis

#30. We were scared. I guess when you're in your twenties, that's how it is. You've got an adult body, but you're trying to make it work with a kid's emotions. With Marilyn and me, it was worse. Our kid emotions didn't even work. We'd been treated too poorly.

Tony Curtis

#31. I've made 122 movies, and I daresay there's a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.

Tony Curtis

#32. Now I'm a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I've been painting all my life, now it's become a second career because of my success in the movies.

Tony Curtis

#33. For instance, I always have one hanging in Budapest in the mayors office.

Tony Curtis

#34. Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.

Tony Curtis

#35. Art is an emotional experience

Tony Curtis

#36. I've always believed that service to others is rent we pay for our time on this planet.

Tony Curtis

#37. Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.

Tony Curtis

#38. I like Vegas for its spontaneity.

Tony Curtis

#39. It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move.

Tony Curtis

#40. Jack Lemmon is my best friend and he's a very wonderful actor. A very talented, very funny man. A lovely man. We're like brothers! We are gifts to each other. He's such a fun personality. There will only ever be one Jack Lemmon.

Tony Curtis

#41. If you don't know your gift, you've got no lift.

Tony Curtis

#42. I'm world famous, everywhere I go there are people who love me because of I've been able to bring them some joy from the movies I've made.

Tony Curtis

#43. I've been in the movies for 50 years, I've made 130 some-odd movies.

Tony Curtis

#44. While you're doing it, you don't really know what you're doing.

Tony Curtis

#45. That so many people respond to me is fabulous. It is like having a kind of Alzheimer's disease, where everyone knows you and you don't know anyone.

Tony Curtis