"The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail." "I gave up being serious about making pictures around the time I made a film with Greer Garson and she took a hundred and twenty-five takes to say no." "I started out to be a sex fiend but couldn't pass the physical." "Movies bore me; especially my own." "I've still got the same attitude I had when I started. I haven't changed anything but my underwear." "Listen. I got three expressions: looking left, looking right and looking straight ahead." (on his acting talents) "People think I have an interesting walk. Hell, I'm just trying to hold my gut in." (on press stories) "They're all true - booze, brawls, broads, all true. Make up some more if you want to." "When I drop dead and they rush to the drawer, there's going to be nothing in it but a note saying 'later'." "I never take any notice of reviews — unless a critic has thought up some new way of describing me. That old one about my lizard eyes and anteater nose and the way I sleep my way through pictures is so hackneyed now." "Years ago, I saved up a million dollars from acting, a lot of money in those days, and I spent it all on a horse farm in Tucson. Now when I go down there, I look at that place and I realize my whole acting career adds up to a million dollars worth of horse shit." "I have two acting styles: with and without a horse." "Every two or three years, I knock off for a while. That way I'm always the new girl in the whorehouse." "I never changed anything, except my socks and my underwear. And I never did anything to glorify myself or improve my lot. I took what came and did the best I could with it." When Mitchum, who served time for marijuana possission, was asked what it was like in jail, he replied, "It's like Palm Springs without the riff-raff." "You've got to realize that a Steve McQueen performance lends itself to monotony." "Not that I'm a complete whore, understand. There are movies I won't do for any amount. I turned down Patton and I turned down Dirty Harry. Movies that piss on the world. If I've got five bucks in my pocket, I don't need to make money that f***ing way, daddy." "John Wayne had four inch lifts in his shoes. He had the overheads on his boat accommodated to fit him. He had a special roof put in his station wagon. The son of a bitch, they probably buried him in his goddamn lifts." "There just isn't any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying." Asked his opinion of the Vietnam War in 1968: "If they won't listen to reason over there, just kill 'em. Nuke 'em all." "Sure I was glad to see John Wayne win the Oscar ... I'm always glad to see the fat lady win the Cadillac on TV, too." "I've survived because I work cheap and don't take up too much time." "You know what the average Robert Mitchum fan is? He's full of warts and dandruff and he's probably got a hernia too, but he sees me up there on the screen and he thinks if that bum can make it, I can be president." "I kept the same suit for six years - and the same dialog. We just changed the title of the picture and the leading lady." "I came back from the war and ugly heroes were in." "Young actors love me. They think if that big slob can make it, there's a chance for us." When asked why in his mid-sixties he took on the arduous task of starring in an 18-hour mini-series The Winds of War: "It promised a year of free lunches." "How do I keep fit? I lay down a lot."