John Wayne Quotes

“Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you—either by direct taxes, or by the cruelly indirect tax of inflation.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes to us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“I’m about as political as a Bengal tiger. . . . I have a feeling that a nation is more than just government, laws and rules. It’s an attitude. It’s the people’s outlook. Dean Martin once asked me what I wanted for my baby daughter, and I realize now that my answer was kind of an attitude toward my country. Well, he asked me this on election day and the bars were closed anyway, so he had a lot of time to listen and I told him. . . . I told him that I wanted for my daughter Marisa what most parents want for their children. I wanted to stick around long enough to see that she got a good start and I would like her to know some of the values that we knew as kids, some of the values that an articulate few now are saying are old-fashioned. But most of all I want her to be grateful, as I am grateful for every day of my life that I spend in the United States of America. . . . I don’t care whether she ever memorizes the Gettysburg Address or not, but I want her to understand it, and since very few little girls are asked to defend their country, she will probably never have to raise her hand to that oath, but I want her to respect all who do. I guess that is what I want for my girl. That is what I want for my country, and that’s what I want for the men that you people are going to pick from here to go shape our destinies.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“What the hell war isn’t unpopular?”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“Duke was not what you would call a natural actor, but he learned. And when he learned, he mastered one of the hardest things of all - to act natural. And he does it so well that a lot of people still don't know he's acting. - Paul Fix”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“I ran over to the students and I was just so angry, I drummed my fists into their goddamn table and I said, “You stupid bastards! You stupid fucking assholes! Blame Johnson if you like. Blame Kennedy. Blame Eisenhower or Truman or fucking goddamn Roosevelt. But don’t you blame that kid. Don’t you dare blame any of those kids. They served! Jesus, the kid lost his arm. I mean what the hell is happening to this country? The first concrete sign of The Green Berets was a December 29, 1965, letter from Wayne to the distinguished director George Stevens. “My company and I want to make a motion picture about the war in”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“When the world was flat on its back, what brought it back? American money and American energy, our humanitarianism and our sense of social responsibility for friend and foe alike.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.” —THE SHOOTIST”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“The crazy-eyed Jack Elam was playing one of the heavies, and won a pair of camera-trained vultures in a poker game with their handler. Elam promptly tried to up the price the vultures were being paid from $100 a day to $250. Waiting in the hot sun for the vultures to be placed on the branch of a tree, Wayne was informed of the sudden hike—a threatened vulture no-show! He promptly strode over to Elam’s trailer and banged on the door. “You get those goddamn birds up in that tree right now or one of their heads is gonna be sticking out of your mouth and the other head out of your asshole.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“Alone among the great movie stars, Wayne dared to show us the most perilous as well as the most moving of the seven ages of man. As Randy Roberts and James Olson pointed out, “He was so American, so like his country—big, bold, confident, powerful, loud, violent and occasionally overbearing, but simultaneously forgiving, gentle, innocent, and naive. . . . John Wayne was his country’s alter ego.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“On identity politics: “The hyphenated American is ridiculous. But that’s what we have to put up with. I think that any person that’s in the United States is better off here than they would be where they came from.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend

“In sum, The Green Berets was a reasonable commercial success, but a critical disaster that convinced most of the moviegoing audience under the age of thirty never to see a John Wayne movie.”
― Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend