1.
Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done.
Burt Reynolds
2.
When an actor marries an actress they both fight for the mirror.
Burt Reynolds
3.
Money doesn't buy happiness. It buys great hookers - but not happiness.
Burt Reynolds
4.
All you really have in the end are your stories.
Burt Reynolds
5.
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
6.
If you hold on to things long enough, they get back into style. Like me.
Burt Reynolds
7.
My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave.
Burt Reynolds
8.
I can tell a young person where the mines are, but he's probably going to step on them anyway.
Burt Reynolds
9.
You're not a man until your father says you're a man.
Burt Reynolds
10.
If you hang onto something long enough, it will come back in style.. Like ME.
Burt Reynolds
11.
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
12.
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
13.
There are no awards in Hollywood for being an idiot.
Burt Reynolds
14.
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
15.
There are three stages of an actor's career. Young, old, and "You look good".
Burt Reynolds
16.
The audience will always forgive you for being wrong and exciting, but never for being right and dull.
Burt Reynolds
17.
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
18.
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
19.
I've always gotten along well with Texans. You've got to.
Burt Reynolds
20.
I'm paying the third highest alimony and child support in the world. And the only two ahead of me are sheiks.
Burt Reynolds
21.
The most important thing to remember is: to protect your quarterback - ME!
Burt Reynolds
22.
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
23.
The more the art dominated my life and my house, the more the house became a home.
Burt Reynolds
24.
Sometimes you have to lose yourself 'fore you can find anything.
Burt Reynolds
25.
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
26.
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
27.
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
28.
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
29.
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
30.
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
31.
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
32.
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
33.
Florida is a very healing place.
Burt Reynolds
34.
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
35.
Jay Leno is wonderful and a good friend, but it will always be the Carson show to a lot of people.
Burt Reynolds
36.
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
37.
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
38.
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
39.
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
40.
The moment you grab someone by the lapels, you're lost.
Burt Reynolds
41.
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
42.
I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.
Burt Reynolds
43.
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
44.
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
45.
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
46.
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
47.
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