Warren Beatty

There’s no point in making a movie just to be making a movie.

It’s very clear you have to engage the public and say: You have to vote no on 74, no on 75, no on 76, no on 77. Those are the issues that Arnold pushing. And those are reactionary, Republican initiatives.

For me, the highest level of sexual excitement is in a monogamous relationship.

I have a day job. I can make movies when I want to.

Movies are fun, but they’re not a cure for cancer.

You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.

Although Ronald Reagan was somebody I disagreed with on most ideological things, he was a friend of mine, and he was a very, very likable man. Ronald Reagan, for instance, was maybe more able to get the very rich to do the right thing sometimes.

Lenin said that people vote with their feet. Well, that’s what’s happening. They either go, or they don’t go. It’s all politics. It’s all demographics.

When I produce a movie – and I’ve produced a number of movies, unlike Arnold – yes, I’m frustrated when the union says you can’t do this, you can’t work past that hour, you’ve got to break for lunch. But ultimately, they’re right. What they do is for everyone’s benefit.

My notion of a wife at 40 is that a man should be able to change her, like a bank note, for two 20s.

When I saw Arnold say that he didn’t need a union, because people in his position don’t need it, I thought, this is a very naive way to present yourself. It’s also kinda dumb about making movies. It doesn’t realize how the union movement even helps the star.

But the Republican right-wing agenda, these people – Arnold and his patrons – felt it could be accomplished by circumventing the Legislature and spending money and organizing and giving sound bites.

That’s all gone, now, the old, Hollywood.

I was friends with President Ronald Reagan and he once said to me, ‘I don’t know how anybody can serve in public office without being an actor.’

And then the conditions of safety – or lack of safety – for teachers in public schools, and the disparity between public schools and private schools is shameful.

To say that people would cease to come to California if they would have to pay more taxes is to underestimate the advantages of being in California – mightily.

I don’t want to run for governor, but I don’t think anyone should put public service out of the question because that’s not what a good citizen does.

Arnold has had his spokesman call me a crackpot. That was a mistake.

Government is not show business.

I believe if a private citizen is able to affect public opinion in a constructive way he doesn’t have to be an elected public servant to perform a public service.

Being here allows me to make the case that not all aging, narcissistic movie actors whose children could be mistaken for their grandchildren necessarily act with the same motivation.

Organized labor, if they’re doing a responsible job, is going to organize the pooling of small amounts of money to protect the interests of the people who are not rich.

The definition of a Schwarzenegger Republican is a Bush Republican who says he’s a Schwarzenegger Republican.

To denigrate the union movement in this way is to denigrate the right and the ability of people who are not rich to organize and to accomplish things together.

When you mutilate movies for mass media, you tamper with the hearts and minds of America.

My mother and my father were teachers. My grandmother and my grandfather were teachers. This is something I really know about. Even when I was a kid, it was a profession my father couldn’t stay in, because he couldn’t make enough money.

Marriage requires a special talent, like acting. Monogamy requires genius.

How can anybody hate nurses? Nobody hates nurses. The only time you hate a nurse is when they’re giving you an enema.

And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women – not just people who belong to the union.