Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. was an American actor, director and producer. He was once Hollywood’s biggest movie star. Famous Burt Reynolds quotes, catchphrases, and movie lines will inspire you to live the best life possible.
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Motivational Burt Reynolds Quotes
All you really have in the end are your stories. – Burt Reynolds
Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done. – Burt Reynolds
You can only hold your stomach in for so many years. – Burt Reynolds
I’ve been very, very lucky through ups and downs. When you crash and burn, you have to pick yourself up and go on and hope to make up for it. – Burt Reynolds
The best way not to fail again is to be absolutely positive that when you do it this time, you’re going to do it right. – Burt Reynolds
You can lose your money. You can spend all of it, and if you work hard, you get it all back. But if you waste your time, you’re never gonna get it back. – Burt Reynolds
Talk shows are a catharsis for me. But the reason they work for me, to be quite honest, is I’ve got another job to go to. I’m able to go in with an attitude of I’m too dumb to be scared, and I’m gonna say whatever comes to my mind. – Burt Reynolds
We got Sally Field onboard [in Smokey and the Bandit] and it changed the entire dynamic. About a third of the way into filming, I was in the car with Sally and there was this little moment where we kind of looked at each other, and then we both turned and looked over at Hal [Needham]. He gave us a thumbs up and said, Yeah! And we kind of knew there was some magic going on. – Burt Reynolds
Having done 300 television shows and almost 60 movies, I’m tired of having guys who are younger than some sandwiches I’ve had, telling me to turn left at the couch. There’s no appreciation of actors and no sense of history. – Burt Reynolds
I regret that I do not have the dignity of Ricardo Montalban, the class of Dean Martin, or the humor of Bill Cosby. I do have the heart of a lion. – Burt Reynolds
It was a bit of a lark when I agreed to do [Smokey and the Bandit], and I knew we’d have fun if we could get Jackie Gleason. – Burt Reynolds
Friends come in herds and they leave in herds. Hollywood loves an adventure, but you have to hit bottom. Then they love to save you and be a part of it. Or think they’re a part of it. – Burt Reynolds
I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act. – Burt Reynolds
Jay Leno is wonderful and a good friend, but it will always be the Carson show to a lot of people. – Burt Reynolds
But then when I’m in a halfway successful movie, it irritates the hell out of the critics in New York, because they’d like to kill my pictures if they could. So maybe I’m pretty good in the movie. Then they use all these words like I’m ‘surprisingly’ good, or ‘shockingly enough,’ I’m good. It’s like I crawled out from under a magazine and they’re surprised I can act. – Burt Reynolds
Gator [McKlusky from White Lightning] was a criminal and a felon, but he had a good heart – he’s probably a cousin to Bo. Bo was not a felon and definitely never wanted to hurt anybody – the final scene confirms that. He confesses to Buford T. Justice that he is right behind him. Gator McKlusky would not have done that. – Burt Reynolds
The audience will always forgive you for being wrong and exciting, but never for being right and dull. – Burt Reynolds
There are no awards in Hollywood for being an idiot. – Burt Reynolds
When an actor marries an actress, they both fight for the mirror. – Burt Reynolds
A fan is a fan is a friend no matter what current he/she/it operates on, AC or DC. Thanks for being one of mine. – Burt Reynolds
I’m really much more like Phil Potter from [the 1979 film] Starting Over. People do think I’m the Bandit [from Smokey and the Bandit], and I’m a lot more serious than that. – Burt Reynolds
All of the younger actors keep coming up to me and asking me where all of the land mines are because they know I’ve stepped on them all. – Burt Reynolds
If you hold on to things long enough, they get back into style. Like me. – Burt Reynolds
I’ve always gotten along well with Texans. You’ve got to. – Burt Reynolds
I’m paying the third highest alimony and child support in the world. And the only two ahead of me are sheiks. – Burt Reynolds
I’m terrified of marriage. I’m terrified of not doing something so important and at the same time I think you shouldn’t rush into these things. – Burt Reynolds
The more the art dominated my life and my house, the more the house became a home. – Burt Reynolds
The moment you grab someone by the lapels, you’re lost. – Burt Reynolds
The most important thing to remember is: to protect your quarterback – ME! – Burt Reynolds
Florida is a very healing place. – Burt Reynolds
Our family really didn’t have a car; we had my dad’s police cruiser. Later he got a Buick, and that’s what I was driving when I had a wreck. I’m lucky it was as big and strong as it was, because that Buick is what saved my life. – Burt Reynolds
Money doesn’t buy happiness. It buys great hookers – but not happiness. – Burt Reynolds
I took the part that was the most fun. I didn’t take the part that would be the most challenging. – Burt Reynolds
I worked as an actor for 60 years, I must have something I can give. – Burt Reynolds
I never, ever meant to hurt her. I think she’s the best at doing what she does. And that laugh is to die for. – Burt Reynolds
I’d rather be shot in the leg than watch an Ingmar Bergman picture. – Burt Reynolds
I think Deliverance challenged a lot of men’s minds about their own manhood, about friendship, and about rape, as far as throwing that word around. They saw that picture and suddenly it shook them up. They realized that it’s not something to laugh about. – Burt Reynolds
I don’t know why I was so stupid (to break up with Sally Field.) Men are like that, you know. You find the perfect person, and then you do everything you can to screw it up. – Burt Reynolds
Excuse me sir, but your ass is on fire. I bet you can’t wait to get back home to Canada and stick it in the snow. – Burt Reynolds
I didn’t like things about the South, I hated it, I really did. It still isn’t right, it won’t ever be right in our lifetime. I really did think things would have progressed by now. I certainly thought we would have a lot more black directors, writers, producers. – Burt Reynolds
I don’t know why I think this, but maybe I’ve got my best work ahead. Maybe. It will be a very different kind of role, but I want to do something where I’m not driving a car or a truck, where it’s real. Something that people wouldn’t expect me to do. Probably a man in search of himself. But we’re always searching for ourselves anyway. – Burt Reynolds
My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave. – Burt Reynolds
If I hadn’t been an actor, I would have been a coach, and I would have been a good one. All teaching is communicating. – Burt Reynolds
When my dad said something to me, I said, Yes, sir. I didn’t question him. And I was forty years old. – Burt Reynolds
God forgive me, but I love the attention of people. – Burt Reynolds
I got a feeling that behind those jeans is something wonderful just waiting to get out. – Burt Reynolds
One of the greatest ladies I ever knew was Dinah Shore and she taught me right away if you can’t laugh at yourself, you have no business in this business. If I have any class — and that’s probably debatable — it’s due to Dinah. – Burt Reynolds
Every time I smell the cut grass and it gets around the fall, I’m like any jock who ever played football. – Burt Reynolds
The stupidest thing I ever did was turn down Terms of Endearment to do Cannonball Run II. Jim Brooks wrote the part of the astronaut for me. Taking that role would have been a way to get all the things I wanted. – Burt Reynolds
I don’t take myself seriously, and I think the ones that do, there’s some sickness with people like that. That’s why I live in Florida. – Burt Reynolds
I’ve had a tremendous amount of fun making fun of myself! As to my legacy, it’s the kids that I have taught. I love this business so very much that I want to share my knowledge about it. Being a good teacher, I’ll take that over being a good actor any day. – Burt Reynolds
(Frank Capra) was my favorite director. Woody Allen and I once sat in a restaurant and picked five pictures we’d take to an island. And much to my shock, he didn’t take a Capra picture and I took two. He took three Ingmar Bergman movies. – Burt Reynolds
I’m going to retire hopefully like Cary Grant did. I’ll be on stage telling a story, everyone’s going to applaud and laugh and then I’ll drop like a rock. – Burt Reynolds
I didn’t say 7. I said 37, I think. – Burt Reynolds
Watch What Happens Live! with Andy Cohen. – Burt Reynolds
It didn’t come out like that. I don’t know what the hell I said, but I get so [hacked] off at people being [hacked] off at me for hurting Kotb. – Burt Reynolds
Famous Burt Reynolds Quotes
He did to other people but not to me, I would ask him what did you think of the last picture dad and he said ‘ What picture? ’. – Burt Reynolds
I said you don’t get it, talent is sexy. – Burt Reynolds
He looks at me and says your father did n’t show up. It was tough, slow but I loved him. – Burt Reynolds
I think I have a performance in me. It’s a good one, i don’t know if I’ll get that script. I’m hoping. – Burt Reynolds
It was kind of like the story of my life. It was great fun to do, the worst? There’s too many. – Burt Reynolds
I remember (actor) Lee Marvin said ‘save your money and have a good time but remember it’s not going to last’, it was a wonderful time for me, and he was right. It doesn’t last, eventually it goes away. – Burt Reynolds
That river was not used by adventurers in a canoe. We ended up breaking apart seven of them, deliverance. – Burt Reynolds
There were films offered to me that wouldn’t have been offered ever before, really good directors suddenly were coming out of the woodwork and asking me to work with them. I was thrilled. – Burt Reynolds
I thought an American couldn’t play (him). The other ones were good. I shouldn’t have turned them down either but Bond, I was wrong, i could have done that role and I could have done it well. – Burt Reynolds
I can’t stand it when I hear certain actors talk about how horrible their life is when they’re working, i’m lucky to be doing what I’m doing, really lucky. – Burt Reynolds
I thought it was really the reason none of us were nominated because they probably thought none of us took the film seriously. – Burt Reynolds
As the story goes, the girls begin accepting poultry in trade: one bird, one lay. And that’s how the place got its name: The Chicken Ranch! – Burt Reynolds
I thought (the director) did a wonderful job but. it wasn’t something I wanted to look at for two hours. – Burt Reynolds
I got along great with 98 percent of them, and a few of them I didn’t like at all, when you write a book like this, you have to tell the whole thing, and there are days when everything isn’t wonderful and there were people who I thought were asses. – Burt Reynolds
You get to a certain age, where you know you can’t go over the wall, but I’ll never get to the age where I can’t go through it. – Burt Reynolds
Trans Am sales went up 70 percent after Smokey and the Bandit, and I was promised a free car every year for life by the Pontiac president. – Burt Reynolds
Sometimes you have to lose yourself ‘fore you can find anything. – Burt Reynolds
I’ve been rich and unhappy, and I’ve been poor and unhappy. Rich was better. – Burt Reynolds
There are three stages of an actor’s career. Young, old, and You look good. – Burt Reynolds
I can tell a young person where the mines are, but he’s probably going to step on them anyway. – Burt Reynolds
You’re not a man until your father says you’re a man. – Burt Reynolds
For the good old American life: for the money, for the glory, and for the fun… mostly for the money. – Burt Reynolds
I’ve always gotten along well with Texans. You’ve got to. – Burt Reynolds
I’m just waiting for somebody to say I’m a fag – that’s when you’re a really big star. – Burt Reynolds
Women are my drugs and alcohol. When I’m involved with one woman, I’m involved with one woman. Period. But between romances, I am carnivorous. – Burt Reynolds
My acting is a bit like basketball. Most females in my films come off very well. I give great assist. And if I’m lucky, I even score. – Burt Reynolds
That’s a big responsibility, and the details obsess me. And, also, I no longer feel I have to do the Tonight Show every time I open my mouth. Twenty years ago, I told myself I’d rather direct than act, and it’s taken me this long. You lose your passion in acting. You make too many mistakes. Maybe that’s why I make so many movies; if you don’t like this one, another one’s opening on Tuesday. But then I spent six months of my life on ‘At Long Last Love,’ a picture nobody saw. I enjoyed making it, I learned from it, I grew, but that’s too much time out of my life. – Burt Reynolds
I’m paying the third highest alimony and child support in the world. And the only two ahead of me are sheiks. – Burt Reynolds
Bless me, Dave, for I have sinned. – Burt Reynolds
I’m gonna knock you so flat, you’ll have to roll down your socks to shit! – Burt Reynolds
In football you can make it if you’ve got the ‘I’m-going-to-get-up-off-the-ground-and-kick-your-ass’ attitude. – Burt Reynolds
I’m terrified of marriage. I’m terrified of not doing something so important and at the same time I think you shouldn’t rush into these things. – Burt Reynolds
I don’t know the difference between Picasso and a car crash. – Burt Reynolds
I’m really much more like Phil Potter from [the 1979 film] Starting Over. People do think I’m the Bandit [from Smokey and the Bandit], and I’m a lot more serious than that. – Burt Reynolds
Goldie [Hawn] is one of the sharpest ladies I’ve ever worked with. She doesn’t miss a thing. She’s my greatest audience. She laughs at all my stories and in the right places, too. – Burt Reynolds
I love Stroker Ace. I love the whole team. Jim Nabors really stole the show, and Ned Beatty, well I’ve made more of my movies with Ned Beatty than anybody else. – Burt Reynolds
If I want to be up for an Academy Award, I’m either going to have to play a tour de force of some kind or have a tracheotomy just before the nominations. – Burt Reynolds
These areThese are some of the poorest people I know. They’re more broke than the Ten Commandments. – Burt Reynolds
You know too much. One of the first things you tought me is that nobody just walks away from the CIA. – Burt Reynolds
We do not have a love/hate relationship. We have a hate/hate relationship. – Burt Reynolds
If you’ve as many films as I have and missed as many opportunities as I have to do good work and been pissed off about it, you say, Well, now you’ve got to start getting it right. If you get a chance, you really want to cook. And the tragedy is, when you finally feel that way about yourself, about your work, nobody wants to give you a chance. And that happens to a lot of actors. But I’m feeling very wanted these days, so there must be something in the air. – Burt Reynolds
Smokey and the Bandit was the first picture [Hal Needham] directed, and I knew he could handle it. I had just directed Gator, and he saw my style and used that as a pattern. – Burt Reynolds
I’m gonna find the guy who invented Xylocaine and kiss his ass on Hollywood and Vine! – Burt Reynolds
I had an Indian Scout motorcycle during high school, but I never could take it to school. My dad would sneak out at night and pull the spark-plug wires. – Burt Reynolds
I had known Hal [Needham] for a while by the time he moved in, so I was sure we’d get along well, and we did. He’d go off and do his gigs and I would do mine, and when we were lucky, we got to work on the same ones. – Burt Reynolds
