"Until I came along all the leading men were handsome, but luckily they wrote a lot of stories about the fellow next door." "If you hit the mark with two out of every five movies you'll keep the wheels of the cycle turning." "To get folks to like you, I figured you had to sort of be their ideal. I don't mean a handsome knight riding a white horse, but a fellow who answered the description of a right guy." "People ask me how come you've been around so long. Well, it's through playing the part of Mr Average Joe American." 1931: "I haven't read a half a dozen books in my life." February, 1942, accepting his Academy Award for Sergeant York from James Stewart: "It was Sergeant Alvin York who won this award. Because to the best of my ability, I tried to be Sergeant York. Shucks, I've been in the business sixteen years and sometimes dreamed I might get one of these things. That's all I can say ... Funny, when I was dreaming I always made a good speech." "I feel very strongly that actors haven't any business at all to shoot their faces off about things I know we know very little about." "I think it would be a good idea [to ban the Communist Party in the United States], although I have never read Karl Marx and I don't know the basis of Communism, beyond what I have picked up from hearsay. From what I hear, I don't like it because it isn't on the level." "Please make sure everyone knows how much their messages mean to me. They have added greatly to my peace of mind. I only wish some of the writers would take a more positive approach to the menace of cancer. I've got it, sure; but I'm not afraid to use the word. Some of them act like it's a dirty word. That's the wrong attitude. We should all bring it out in the open, recognize that it exists - and fight it! Cancer is everybody's enemy. We can't 'think' an enemy out of existence by ignoring it." (April 1961) "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." - after Clark Gable ended up with the avoided lead male part in 'It Happened One Night' (1934) , which turned out to be a huge success "To get folks to like you, I figured you sort of had to be their ideal. I don't mean a handsome knight riding a white horse, but a fellow who answered the description of a right guy." "Sure there are fellows like Willy Loman, but you don't have to write plays about them." "People ask me how come you been around so long. Well, it's through playing the part of Mr Average Joe American." "My whole career has been one of extreme good fortune. I think I'm an average actor ... In acting you can do something and maybe ... some people think it's fine, but you know inside of you that it can be done better ... You don't feel that you really attained a goal in the acting business; you always feel that you're still learning." "Nan Collins, my manager, came from Gary, Indiana and suggested I adopt that name. She felt it was more exciting than Frank. I figured I'd give it a try. Good thing she didn't come from Poughkeepsie." "The only achievement I am really proud of is the friends I have made in this community." "I don't like to see exaggerated airs and exploding egos in people who are already established. No player ever rises to prominence solely on talent. They're molded by forces other than themselves. They should remember this - and at least twice a week drop to their knees and thank Providence for elevating them from cow ranches, dime store ribbon counters and bookkeeping desk." "I suppose one of the most important things about real beauty is intelligence, and real womanliness - it's a combination of intelligence and all the instincts of womanhood, motherhood, and the beauty of girlhood. These things all sort of go in together, and they are in so many people who are not reputed beauties." "I've been with some good ones, but maybe the best was Franchot Tone. I made two pictures with him and he stole both of them. Something went wrong with how he was handled; or who knows, maybe it was Joan Crawford. But he had everything - great at comedy and also at serious stuff if given the chance. Now The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is one hell of a picture, but you could take me right out of it and it would still be one. But it couldn't be much without Tone." "I liked the role because I was portraying a good, sound American character." - On Sergeant York "You've got to have a fire under you, and when you're beginning, you've got one all the time. After you get established, you have to create your own fire, and it's never easy." "All this business about me never saying anything is a piece of crap." "Asked if he ever wanted to act on the stage: "Not since I was at Grinnell. When I gave them the story that I was trying to do a Broadway play, I must have been desperate for publicity. I figured it didn't matter what I said. I learned very early that nothing you ever say gets quoted verbatim by the press. So for many years I may have clammed up, but I guess I've reached an age where I don't particularly care. Anyway, I talk." "I put in a call to Clark Gable to tell him about some deer I'd heard were running loose up in the Canadian Rockies. I was told he was on location ... in Hong Kong. I called Robert Taylor. He was on location, too, in Italy, unless he had finished there and gone to England. James Stewart was in Africa. In the old days a company that went as far away as Texas was thought to be forsaking civilization for good. Today these countries are just part of the Hollywood scene and it's as Shakespeare said, all the world's a stage." "Naturalness is hard to talk about, but I guess it boils down to this: You find out what people expect of your type of character and then you give them what they want. That way an actor never seems unnatural or affected no matter what role he plays." "People hang on after they should quit, because the urge to act stays with you. Sometimes in the middle of a scene I find myself saying a piece of dialog from fifteen years ago. I've thought of retiring lots of times, but then I think I would just go nuts, and probably spend all my time searching for a really great Western script." (1960) "I say he's a crack comedian, and isn't competition for me at all." - On Cary Grant "There's no question in my mind that those people want to have a war. They're determined to be a world power and seem to feel that's the only way to become one. Those storm troopers are awesome. The atmosphere in Berlin - well, I've never sensed such tension." - After visiting the Third Reich in 1938