Asner Quotes

#1. I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.

Ed Asner

#2. I went into acting as psychotherapy, and it's still a work in progress.

Ed Asner

#3. I'm a bad dater - I'm just not good at it. It's so weird dating in this town. It's like high school. I get a lot of people who have their publicist call my agent to ask, 'Is she dating anyone?'

Jules Asner

#4. To my knowledge, there is no blacklist. But there is a mindset, even among liberal producers, that says 'He may be difficult, so let's avoid him.'

Ed Asner

#5. As they used to say 'What if they gave a war and nobody came?' How worthwhile if they declared a day of peace and everybody came.

Ed Asner

#6. Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare.

Ed Asner

#7. You've got loves of your life and breakups of your life, that kind of thing. They leave a mark. It stays with you, a bad aftertaste.

Jules Asner

#8. I loved journalism until the day my journalism teacher, a man I revered, came by my desk and said, 'Are you planning on going into journalism?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'I wouldn't.' I said, 'Well, why not?' He said, 'You can't make a living.'

Ed Asner

#9. There's never been a time in history, no matter what the public thinks, when actors have been paid more than they should be.

Ed Asner

#10. I was never really a model. That somehow is in my bio. The whole thing is I was tall since I was a child - you're either a model or you play basketball.

Jules Asner

#11. A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama.

Ed Asner

#12. I can't stand accessories.

Jules Asner

#13. They're sheep. They like Bush enough to credit him with saving the nation after 9/11. Three thousand people get killed, and everybody thinks they're next on the list. The president comes along, and he's got his six-guns strapped on, and people think he's going to save them.

Ed Asner

#14. You don't work with Cloris Leachman, you experience her.

Ed Asner

#15. The free access to information is not a privilege, but a necessity for any free society. One of my favorite things to do as a young man was wander through the stacks of my hometown library. I'd just browse until I found something interesting. Libraries have definitely changed my life.

Ed Asner

#16. I was a newspaper editor in high school, and I truly thought of journalism as a career. I loved it.

Ed Asner

#17. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets.

Ed Asner

#18. I think women get labeled a lot as being crazy. But I think men make us crazy.

Jules Asner

#19. My first job was with an auto plant, Kansas City - they treated you like slaves. From there I went back to Chicago, worked in steel mills, drove a cab, stuff like that.

Ed Asner

#20. I'm not sought after. I never get enough work. It's the history of my career. There just isn't anything to turn down, let me put it that way.

Ed Asner

#21. Some of my earliest political feelings were based on the anti-Japanese bubblegum cards I got. There were also Spanish Civil War bubblegum cards. Awful.

Ed Asner

#22. I got some news for you. One, there is no Jesus. Two, there is no God. Three, mind your own business and everything works out.

Ed Asner

#23. I don't believe in God, though I'm not prepared to call myself an atheist either. You know the old phrase: 'There are no atheists in foxholes.' I've never been in a foxhole, and if I ever find myself in a foxhole, I'll let you know if I believe in God or not.

Ed Asner

#24. Never thought acting was something you could make a living at. It wasn't until I was in college, and got a lead in a play, that I began to realize I might just be able to blunder into this profession.

Ed Asner

#25. I can do lovers. I can do Sir Galahad types. I'm not going to limit myself in voice-overs to irascible old men.

Ed Asner

#26. There are genuinely sufficient resources in the world to ensure that no one, nowhere, at no time, should go hungry.

Ed Asner

#27. In a way, 'WALL-E' had some of the same disturbing elements that 'Up' does.

Ed Asner

#28. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get.

Ed Asner

#29. The treasure shouldn't do the hunting, and you're a treasure.

Ed Asner

#30. I pray that this council, which will probably be too late to save Iraq, will do what it can, which will be immeasurably strong in what it does in trying to save our democracy.

Ed Asner

#31. They say making laws is like making sausages. You shouldn't watch. It's the same for acting, especially for the actor who works unconsciously.

Ed Asner

#32. The older I've gotten, the more the need to exert comedy no matter how tragic a character I may be portraying because they are essentials for presenting truth.

Ed Asner

#33. I also think that there is a strong streak of racism, and whenever we engage in foreign adventures. Our whole history in regime change has been of people of different color.

Ed Asner

#34. I hardly wear any makeup.

Jules Asner

#35. I will always have enough money to last the rest of my life ... as long as I don't buy anything.

Ed Asner

#36. I don't know who made the Earth. I woke up one morning, and it's here. I make the best of it.

Ed Asner

#37. I loved getting to Chagrin Falls, being by the falls; what a cute place it is.

Ed Asner

#38. We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life through the destruction of our ecology, and yet every one of us, in our own little comfortable ways, contributes daily to that destruction. It's time now to awaken in each one of us the respect and attention our beloved Mother deserves.

Ed Asner

#39. I have an engagement ring, which is my favorite accessory.

Jules Asner

#40. It's like an athlete. He has a string of hot years, and then he fades into nothingness. The actor doesn't necessarily fade into nothingness. After his hot years, he fades into a different category.

Ed Asner

#41. When I was working my way up, it seemed to me that only Westerns and 'Star Treks' or sci-fi movies could afford to get away with presenting the problems - like prejudice and desegregation, for instance - that we face in our everyday lives.

Ed Asner

#42. I am not a method actor, though I studied for a year with Lee Strasburg.

Ed Asner

#43. I like smart, funny, self-deprecating men.

Jules Asner

#44. Where the work goes, I go. Wherever adulation occurs, that's where you'll find me.

Ed Asner

#45. All capitalists should be like Warren Buffett, and he says he should be taxed more.

Ed Asner

#46. I've never stopped loving cartoons. I loved cartoons as a kid. I can still look at them and enjoy them.

Ed Asner