Orson Bean

For most of my life I didn't believe in God. Who had time?

One night in a club in Boston, I tried the name Roger Duck. No laughs. The next night, I tried Orson Bean, putting together a pompous first name and a silly second name. I got laughs, so I decided to keep it.

I felt only a conservative president could bring peace in Vietnam 'cause he wouldn't be accused of being soft on communism.

I think people are afraid to be original.

I made up my mind I was going to walk that thin line between fame and oblivion.

People shouldn't get into show business because they want to become stars or become rich; they should get into it because they can't help but put on a show.

I didn't use a voice change to do Bilbo. I have a distinctive voice anyway. I did an attitude change, making Bilbo kind of fussy - fussy and proper - then gradually dropped the fussiness and properness as the madness of battle really affects him.

Whatever else it was about, the feminist movement had no interest in exploding the myth of the mysterious and wonderful world of business; it simply wanted in on it.

Until I read Neill's book, 'Summerhill,' I thought there were only two ways to bring up children, either with authoritarian discipline or with permissiveness. Either way, hopefully, applied with love. Now I know there is a third way: teaching a child self*regulation, not by coercion or by abandoning discipline, but by freedom with responsibility.

I don't spend my life making money to spend tomorrow, or to acquire possessions.

I am dedicated to giving my kids the memory of happy parents. So I spend a lot of time with them. We really know each other. If they should decide later on that they hate me, at least they'll know who they're hating.

I think of my life as a cheap novel. Part of you wants it to go on forever, and part of you wants to see how it comes out.

I've made a lot of dumb mistakes, but I don't regret them at all.

In the long period of time when I did talk shows and game shows, a whole new generation of people came along who thought of me as that, and not as a theater person.

I was living in a four-story Manhattan townhouse with three full-time servants and silver to be polished, and I was doing too much. My kids were growing up without me, and suddenly I thought, 'I want some other stuff.' So I stopped working instead of cutting back, and went to Australia instead of Vermont.

I'm greedy for experience. I keep finding new things.

The people who get bored and want to get out of a long-run aren't the people who actually like to act.

I always identified with Frankenstein because as a kid, I never got the girl.

I don't expect to be another Walt Disney, but I do get a terrific bang out of being able to say things with pictures. Maybe that means something deep and profound about me - but I doubt it.

Anything that's done correctly is easy.