Danny DeVito, also known as Daniel Michael DeVito Jr., was born November 17th 1944 in New Jersey. After graduating high school, Danny wasn’t doing much and didn’t know what to do with his life, so when his sister offered for him to work at her salon he accepted. After working at his sister’s salon for about a year and a half, he applied to a school in New York, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, to take makeup classes.
All applicants of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts were required to perform a monologue as part of their application, Danny DeVito’s monologue received great feedback so he decided to take acting classes as well. He graduated the academy in 1966 and then went on to briefly work in Connecticut at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, where he met and became friends with fellow actor, Michael Douglas.
DeVito moved to LA seeking acting jobs, but eventually moved back to New York to take jobs on Broadway. In 1971 he starred in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, a broadway production based off of Ken Kesey’s classic novel. When they went to make the film version of the Broadway production, they asked Danny to relive his role in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and that was when his acting career took off. Critics loved the movie and Danny Devito was put into a national spotlight.
He went on to acting in many movies such as, ‘Terms of Endearment’ (1983), ‘Twins’ (1988), ‘Batman Returns’ (1992), ‘Ruthless People’ (1986), ‘Matilda’ (1996), ‘The War of the Roses’ (1989), ‘Throw Momma from the Train’ (1987), ‘Solitary Man’ (2009), and ‘Dumbo’ (2019). Aside from the roles he has had in those films and many others, he also stars in a TV show alongside Charlie Day called ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’.
Danny Devito Quotes
- “I’ve been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s a tower, and it’s leaning. You look at it, but nothing happens, so then you look for someplace to get a sandwich.” – Danny DeVito
- “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” – Danny DeVito
- “Christmas is a good excuse to eat everything.” – Danny DeVito
- “I am self-centred. I just adore myself.” – Danny DeVito
- “I don’t think I’ve been bored, ever. I’ve always been working on two or three things at a time; whether it was in the early days, or whatever, I was always working on something.” – Danny DeVito
- “M*sturbating Bums are bad for Business.” – Danny DeVito
- There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull: How do you hang on to someone who won’t stay? And how do you get rid of someone who won’t go?” – Danny DeVito
- “The choices we make, dictate the lives we lead.” – Danny DeVito
- “I have been very fortunate in my life. I have had a lot of happiness. I have a great family and I work a lot, and that’s what I like to do.” – Danny DeVito
- “If you’re going to have kids, there’s only one way to go. They have to know they’re the most important things in your life, and once you’re doing that, there’s no way that you could not learn from them, because they just give you stuff constantly.” – Danny DeVito
- “Fill me up with cream. Turn me into cannoli.” – Danny DeVito
- “Of course I’ve got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons, I’ve got em ’cause everyone else has. But as soon as you use them they screw everything up.” – Danny DeVito
- “The whole point of love is to put someone else’s needs above your own.” – Danny DeVito
- “I lay on the ground, but then I can’t reach, I don’t want to take my foot out of the tub, but I’ve got to call somebody because I’ve got to get a band-aid or something to stop the bleeding” – Danny DeVito
- “Most men somewhere in their psyche are still dragging women around by their hair. It’s terrible. I have two daughters, but even before my kids were born I always thought that it was terrible.” – Danny DeVito
- “It don’t care whether I’m good enough. It don’t care whether I snore or not. It don’t care which God I pray to. There are only three things with that kind of unconditional acceptance: Dogs, donuts, and money.” – Danny DeVito
- “It’s fun to be on the edge. I think you do your best work when you take chances, when you’re not safe, when you’re not in the middle of the road, at least for me, anyway.” – Danny DeVito
- “I don’t look ahead. I’m right here with you. It’s a good way to be.” – Danny DeVito
- “You have to give people permission to laugh. That’s why they would always cut to the banana peel in the Laurel and Hardy movies.” – Danny DeVito
- “Jersey is always with me. I was one of the lucky ones. Asbury Park is just the greatest place in the world to spend your childhood.” – Danny DeVito
- “When we get out of this, I’m gonna shove my fist right into your *ss, hard and fast Not in the s*xual way! In the ‘I am p*ssed off’ sort of way.” – Danny DeVito
- “I climbed like a billion stairs… its not like I can take them two at a time.” – Danny DeVito
- “America’s racist, so what do you expect.” – Danny DeVito
- “After you’ve lived with somebody for 11 years, what’s a guy in a robe reading from a book going to change?” – Danny DeVito
- “My parents worked their tails off, but we weren’t the poorest people in town. Some people I went to school with, you could tell they were dirt poor.” – Danny DeVito
- “I didn’t do it because of the underlying greed that’s prevailing, but it is about greed, doing the right thing at the right time using your clout when you have it and what for and what reason.” – Danny DeVito
- “So, you pick this stuff here and this stuff there and then you see things in certain ways and you start visualizing and thank God I get the chance to do this. It’s really the greatest thing in the whole wide world.” – Danny DeVito
- “I’ll tell you one thing, it’s a cruel, cruel world.” – Danny DeVito
- “I’ll watch Ricky Gervais in anything he does. The guy’s hilarious.” – Danny DeVito
- “When I’m directing or producing, I like to do different kinds of stories. But you have to know what you really like, and when you do, you have to front your position.” – Danny DeVito
- “People come into your lives who you have a good time with, and time goes by and you still have a good time with them and you do stupid stuff with them. To me, that’s life.” – Danny DeVito
- “What you do with it and things like that, but I basically chose this after I read it because I thought it was different and funny and unique and dark things that I like to do.” – Danny DeVito
- “What do you call 500 lawyers lying on the bottom of the Ocean? A good start.” – Danny DeVito
- “We did ‘Erin Brockovich’, we did ‘Man on the Moon’, we did ‘Living Out Loud’, but now I’m going to keep going.” – Danny DeVito
- “I love going to all kinds of movies, I screen DVDs in my house, but I go to the theatre a lot in the afternoon. I don’t get bugged because there aren’t many people around.” – Danny DeVito
- “We don’t even know if we’re in this room. We could be in a turtle’s dream in outer space.” – Danny DeVito
- “Even if one doesn’t smoke pot, one has to see the benefits of decriminalizing it.” – Danny DeVito
- “A lot of it revolves around food with me because a lot of my life does in a way.” – Danny DeVito
- “The son has always felt like he was a footnote in one of the stories the father tells. The father is an amazing storyteller and one of the tales that he tells is how he met his wife.” – Danny DeVito
- “I didn’t do it because of the underlying greed that’s prevailing, but it is about greed, doing the right thing at the right time using your clout when you have it and what for and what reason.” – Danny DeVito
- “A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful the way you lean.” – Danny DeVito
- “I don’t know. I think it’s funny! I think it’s funny! I go, what? It’s so absurd. I’m alone.” – Danny DeVito
- “A bad salesman will automatically drop his price. Bad salesmen make me sick.” – Danny DeVito
- “Wherever I am, it’s a really good feeling to have that connection to people. I love to go out to talk to people and be with folks. I don’t shy away from it.” – Danny DeVito
- “It’s a first for me. It’s my first nude scene.” – Danny DeVito
- “The choices we make, dictate the lives we lead.” – Danny DeVito
- “In order for the light of gratitude and happiness to shine so brightly, the darkness of how it could be worse must be present.” – Danny DeVito
- “I’m always studying and I’ve been doing it for a long time now.” – Danny DeVito
- “I love women. I mean, I’m married, but I used to get in all kinds of trouble.” – Danny DeVito
- “It’s unfortunate that the entire country is a racist country.We’re living in a country that discriminates, and has certain racist tendencies.” – Danny DeVito
- “People would say to me, ‘Why don’t you do Broadway?’ and my big joke was, nah, the dressing rooms are too small.” – Danny DeVito
Danny Devito Video
In this excellent video for GQ Magazine, Danny DeVito breaks down his most iconic roles, including his characters in ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’ ‘Batman Returns,’ ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ ‘Taxi,’ ‘Throe Momma from the Train,’ ‘Twins,’ ‘Matilda,’ ‘Hercules,’ ‘L.A. Confidential,’ ‘Curmudgeons’ and ‘Jumanji: The Next Level.’
It’s worth a quick watch if you want to see a great visual history of all of Devito’s legendary roles – enjoy!
Also see: Lilo and Stitch Quotes
Summary
Danny DeVito is for sure a natural born actor, he realized this fact about himself back in the 1960s when he was applying to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. He has many many fans world-wide and is a well known and loved actor and co-star. Most of his roles are comedy roles, so obviously some of his quotes are going to be comical.
Send quotes to fellow Danny DeVito fans, say some of these quotes as you watch one of the many movies he has starred in, or just use one of his quotes to prove your Danny DeVito fan status on social media.
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