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Home
Authors
Theodore Bikel
Austrian
Actor
About the author
When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Government
#Interest
#Artist
After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Word
#Sermons
Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#People
#Fear
#Temptation
Audiences are audiences.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Audiences
But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Death
#Children
#Israel
#Cause
#Difference
#Deed
But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Culture
#Artist
By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Action
#Soul
#Battle
#Hunger
#Memories
#Starvation
#Endurance
#Nobility
Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Work
#Body
#Fact
#Artist
#Theatre
No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Time
#State
#Animation
All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Strength
#Power
#Justice
#Choice
#Arrogance
I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Chance
#Fighting
#Language
Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the bookshelf or the paper route.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Right
#World
#Perceptions
I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Culture
#Song
I know for certain of only one commandment, one obligation, that God imposes upon us, and that is to be compassionate toward other human beings.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#God
#Obligation
I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Hope
#World
#Respect
#Voice
#Hate
#Oppression
I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
I do not know who there is among us that can claim to know God's purpose and God's intent.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#God
#Purpose
I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Words
#Weapons
#Cause
I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Wonder
#Sense
I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Family
#Cause
#Equality
I always sang, I always acted, I always played.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Being
#Country
#Risk
#Language
#Age
For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Life
#Principles
Every actor wants to direct.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Actor
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Study
#Knowledge
No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Art
#Past
#Language
I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#World
The play is always fresh to me. It's not the audience's fault that I've said the words before.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Words
#Play
#Fault
You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Tradition
#Order
#Modernity
You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#World
#Travel
You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Time
#May
#Comedy
#Months
#Audiences
While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Practice
#Ideology
#Doubt
What moves me is neither ethnocentric pride nor sectarian arrogance. I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures. But it is mine.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Culture
#Pride
#Arrogance
We live in a world of guns, bombs and terror. To conquer hate seems a nigh-impossible task.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#World
#Terror
#Hate
#Bombs
I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Traditions
Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Songs
#Life
#Rights
You learn more from the flops than you do from the hits.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
One might have thought the world would stop ascribing moral equivalence between acts of terrorism and acts of punishing terrorism. It has not happened that way.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#World
#Thought
#Terrorism
No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Being
#Unity
#Doubt
Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Support
#Nation
#France
#Survival
#Pride
#Ireland
#Countries
#Shame
In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Art
#World
#Play
#History
#Language
#Song
#Painting
If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Vanity
I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Being
#Actor
I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. To me it was meaningless. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sings about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Work
#Beauty
We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Study
#Age
On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.
Theodore Bikel,
Austrian
Actor
#Right
#End
#Beginning
#Funny