Hal Holbrook Speaks

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.
Hal Holbrook

I don't have a director. The audience directs me.
Hal Holbrook

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

I have a suicide impulse.
Hal Holbrook

I like to be who I am.
Hal Holbrook

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

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.
Hal Holbrook

Mark Twain cannot be defined.
Hal Holbrook

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.
Hal Holbrook

There's no good guys and bad guys.
Hal Holbrook

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

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

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.
Hal Holbrook

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.
Hal Holbrook