- People don't know my real self, and they're not about to find out.
- [to interviewers] Just call me a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy.
- Girls have an unfair advantage over boys: If they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb.
- [recorded in January 1985, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer] Now that I'm gone, I tell you: Don't smoke, whatever you do, just don't smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer. I'm convinced of that.
- I'm not of the can-kicking, shovel-carrying, ear-scratching, torn T-shirt school of acting. There are very few real men in the movies these days. Yet being a real man is the most important quality an actor can offer on the screen.
- [on his character Chris Adams from The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Return of the Seven (1966)] Well . . . He's just a dirty bum. There are only two things clean about him: His gun and his soul.
- [his Academy Award for Best Actor acceptance speech, 1957] I hope this is not a mistake, because I won't give it back for anything in the world. Thank you very much.
- I had a rule when I was doing "The King and I", that I never allowed anybody backstage, except after the show, because all this work went into creating an illusion and would be destroyed by a visit backstage. . . And one day, during the intermission, the stage doorman came in and said, "I don't know what to do, Mr. Brynner, there's a man who says he's Cecil B. DeMille and he has to see you immediately about a matter of life and death." I said, "Well, show him in, if he doesn't mind I'm almost stark naked, but I don't mind. Ask him in." So he came in, shook my hand and said, "Mr. Brynner, how'd you like to make a picture that your grandchildren will see in the theaters around the world?" I said, "I think I'd like that." He said, "Then will you play Rameses in The Ten Commandments (1956) for me?" I said, "Certainly." We shook hands, and that was the deal. It was as firm a deal as I've ever had in this business. I was the first actor engaged for the movie.
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