Menu

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Ed Asner Quotes

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

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

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

– Ed Asner

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

– Ed Asner

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

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

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

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

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

– Ed Asner

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

– Ed Asner

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

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

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

You don’t work with Cloris Leachman, you experience her.

– Ed Asner

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

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

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

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

– Ed Asner

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

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

– Ed Asner

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

Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.

– Ed Asner

To tell you the truth, I hadn’t seen any Pixar until I went to see ‘Wall-E,’ and I watched it and I was shocked to see how adult it was, with the setting in our lives, both present and future, and how they dealt with it… And then quite relieved to find that the one I was working on, ‘Up,’ how adult it was.

– Ed Asner

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

– Ed Asner

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

Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can’t get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.

– Ed Asner