Marlon Brando is regarded as the greatest actor of the 20th century with a career that spanned over six decades winning two Academy Awards. Born on 3rd April 1924, Marlon was also an activist for numerous causes and the notable ones being civil rights movements and several native American movements. Brando is also credited for being the first actor to introduce the Stanislavski System of acting.
Marlon Brando first gained acclaim and his first-ever Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a major role for iterating the role of Stanley Kowalski in 1951 Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” that he originated on Broadway. Additionally, he received further praise and a Golden Globe Award and a first Academy Award for his outstanding performance as Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront.”
Marlon Brando was ranked as the fourth-greatest movie star among male movie stars by American Film Institute whose screen debuts occurred around 1950. In this article, we present the Best Marlon Brando Quotes about his career and personal life.
Marlon Brando Quotes
1. “At fourteen or fifteen, I decided to earn my living when I grew up playing drums made from wooden beer kegs and leading a group called Keg Brando and His Kegliners. We organized a little band, but it didn’t last long and didn’t make any money.”– Marlon Brando
2. “Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It’s a bum’s life. Quitting acting, that’s the sign of maturity.”– Marlon Brando
3. “With women, I’ve got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end. I slip the loop around their necks so they can’t get away or come too close. Like catching snakes.”– Marlon Brando
4. “I have never been able to remember the number of my driver’s license, and there have been times when I couldn’t even remember my own telephone number, but when I hear a song, sometimes only once, I never forget the melody or the lyric.”– Marlon Brando
5. “The military mind has one aim, and that is to make soldiers react as mechanically as possible. They want the same predictability in a man as they do in a telephone or a machine gun, and they train their soldiers to act as a unit, not as individuals.”– Marlon Brando
6. “I don’t think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don’t think it’s the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed into as many females as possible.”– Marlon Brando
7. “The most repulsive thing you could ever imagine is the inside of a camel’s mouth. That and watching a girl eat octopus or squid.”– Marlon Brando
8. “If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It’s the ultimate hustle.”– Marlon Brando
9. “I value each woman for what she has to offer whether it be charm-beauty-wit-intelligence or humor but warmth is the quality I value most.”– Marlon Brando
10. “There’s a line in the picture where he snarls, ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’ That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life.”– Marlon Brando
11. “Acting, in general, is something most people think they’re incapable of, but they do it from morning to night. The subtlest acting I’ve ever seen is by ordinary people trying to show they feel something they don’t, or trying to hide something. It’s something everyone learns at an early age.”– Marlon Brando
12. “I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered. If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.”– Marlon Brando
13. “Our family always had animals, but they became more important to me as the years passed because they helped me deal with the absence of love.”– Marlon Brando
14. “I have never been able to remember the number of my driver’s license, and there have been times when I couldn’t even remember my own telephone number, but when I hear a song, sometimes only once, I never forget the melody or the lyric.”– Marlon Brando
15. “The more sensitive you are, the more certain you are to be brutalized, develop scabs, never evolve. Never allow yourself to feel anything, because you always feel to much.”– Marlon Brando
16. “I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.”– Marloon Brando
17. “I’ve always found animals easy to love because their love is unconditional. They are trusting, loyal and undemanding except in wanting love in return.”– Marlon Brando
18. “Every spring the meadow in front of the house became an ocean of canary-colored mustard blossoms, and when a wind came up, it was like watching a sea of rippling golden waves rising and falling with the breeze like breakers just before they pound into a reef.”– Marlon Brando
19. “Tell me, do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”– Marlon Brando
20. “I don’t think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don’t think it’s the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed into as many females as possible.”– Marlon Brando
21. “If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It’s the ultimate hustle.”– Marlon Brando
22. “The four pillars of wisdom that support journalistic endeavors are: lies, stupidity, money-grubbing, and ethical irresponsibility.”– Marlon Brando
23. “To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.”– Marlon Brando
24. “I put on an act sometimes, and people think I’m insensitive. Really, it’s like a kind of armor because I’m too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn’t like me, I’ve got to get out.”– Marlon Brando
25. “If you’re successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you’re unsuccessful it’s worse than having a skin disease.”– Marlon Brando
26. “Like a large number of men, I, too, have had homosexual experiences and I am not ashamed. But if there is someone who is convinced that Jack Nicholson and I are lovers, may they continue to do so. I find it amusing.”– Marlon Brando
27. “You’ve seen every single race besmirched, but you never saw an unfavorable image of a kike because the Jews are ever watchful for that. They never allowed it to be shown on the screen!”– Marlon Brando
28. “Ask most kids about details about Auschwitz or about how the American Indians were assassinated as a people and they don’t know anything about it. They don’t want to know anything. Most people just want their beer or their soap opera or their lullaby.”– Marlon Brando
29. “The most repulsive thing you could ever imagine is the inside of a camel’s mouth. That and watching a girl eat octopus or squid.”– Marlon Brando
30. “Sometimes you just get the feeling that here it is 11o’clock in the morning and you’re not in school.”– Marlon Brando
31. “Acting serves as the quintessential social lubricant and a device for protecting our interests and gaining advantage in every aspect of life.”– Marlon Brando
32. “Even today I meet people who think of me automatically as a tough, insensitive, coarse guy named Stanley Kowalski. They can’t help it, but, it is troubling.”– Marlon Brando
33. “The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.”– Marlon Brando
34. “If the vacuum formed by Dr. Martin Luther King’s death isn’t filled with concern and understanding and a measure of love, then I think we all are really going to be lost here in this country.”– Marlon Brando
35.” I refused to be a fool dancing on a string held by all of those big shots. I don’t apologize, that’s my life.”– Marlon Brando
36. “I refused to be a fool dancing on a string held by all of those big shots. I don’t apologize, that’s my life.”– Marlon Brando
37. “Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we’re acting. Most people do it all day long.”– Marlon Brando
38. “If there’s anything unsettling to the stomach, it’s watching actors on television talk about their personal lives.”– Marlon Brando
39. “If the expenditure of money for entertainment in America is any indication of taste, clearly the majority of us are addicted to trash.”– Marlon Brando
40. “It is my understanding that the Constitution of the United States allows everybody the free choice between cheesecake and strudel.”– Marlon Brando
41. “I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream. That’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.”– Marlon Brando
42. “The close-up says everything, it’s then that an actor’s learned, rehearsed behavior becomes most obvious to an audience and chips away, unconsciously, at its experience of reality. In a close-up, the audience is only inches away, and your face becomes the stage.”– Marlon Brando
43. “The power and influence of a movie star is curious: I didn’t ask for it or take it; people gave it to me. Simply because you’re a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges.”– Marlon Brando
44. “At Libertyville High, I was a bad student, chronic truant, and all-round incorrigible. I was forever being sent to the principal’s office to be disciplined.”– Marlon Brando
45. “The caste system may be more highly developed in countries like India or England, but every tier of society in almost every culture tries to dominate a group it perceives as beneath it.”– Marlon Brando
46. “Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.”– Marlon Brando
47. “People don’t want to lose their enemies. We have favorite enemies, people we love to hate and we hate to love. If they do something good, we don’t like it.”– Marlon Brando
48. “What might be a brave choice for you, for another person they may simply not experience fear.”– Marlon Brando
49. “People will like you who never met you in life, they think you’re absolutely wonderful; and then people also will hate you, for reasons that have nothing to do with any real experience with you.”– Marlon Brando
50. “It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek.”– Marlon Brando
Related: Interesting Marlene Dietrich Quotes
Marlon Brando on Rejecting His Oscar for ‘The Godfather’
Marlon talks more about his decision to reject the Oscar for his performance in The Godfather during his appearance on the Dick Cavett Show. This show is fascinating and must watch if you are a Brando fan. It aired on June 12, 1973.
Related: Al Pacino’s Best Quotes
Summary of Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando was a remarkable actor who inspired many with his unmatched skills and sense of humor. He had a very successful career in the film industry becoming a global icon. He was a very popular activist who refused an Oscar award in protest against stereotypical portrayals of the Native Americans. The above Marlon Brando quotes are very helpful if you value humanitarian.
Image Credit: Sipuede7, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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