Hal Holbrook

I developed a resistance to authority. Not to discipline – I learned that. But to authority. I like to think for myself. And I like to cause trouble.

I got a feeling about political correctness. I hate it. It causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think.

I like to be who I am.

Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.

There’s no good guys and bad guys.

We don’t have truth delivered to us very often, especially in this very commercialized world.

You can go into Mark Twain’s material and prove anything you want. He was against war. He was for war. He was against rich people and he was for them. He was a kaleidoscope.

I don’t have a director. The audience directs me.

We live in a democracy. We have this extraordinary opportunity to use our mind and say what we think, speak as we think. Sometimes what we say is objectionable to other people. But that is part of a free society.

Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that’s got true religion, several of them.

One of the problems with putting Huck Finn into a movie or on the stage is, you always make the white people stupid and racist. The point is, they don’t know they’re racist.

Mark Twain cannot be defined.

I have a suicide impulse.

To communicate with each other, we got to get mad at each other sometimes.