Sonny Boy Quotes

“It makes you want to take a lesson from Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, who had a guy who would stand next to him in this chariot so that when the crowds were cheering for him, the guy next to him would say, "Remember, you're only a man. You're only a man.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“As I found out in Hollywood, sometimes not wanting something is the best way of getting it.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“Fame, as my friend Heathcote Williams said, is the perversion of the natural human instinct for validation and attention.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“Marlon showed me generosity, too, but I don't think he saved it all for me, because he shared it with the audience. It's what made his performance so memorable and so endearing. We all fantasize about having someone like Don Vito we can turn to. So many people are abused in this life, but if you've got a Godfather, you've got someone you can go to, and they will take care of it. That's why people responded to him in the film. It was more than just the bravado and the boldness; it was the humanity underneath it. That's why he had to play Vito larger than life- his physical size, the shoe polish in his hair, the cotton in his cheeks. His Godfather had to be an icon, and Brando made him as iconic as Citizen Kane or Superman, Julius Caesar or George Washington. p124”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“It was threatening. Brando had become part of a triumvirate of actors, along with Montgomery Clift and James Dean. Clift had the beauty and the soul, the vulnerability. Dean was like a sonnet, compact and economical, able to do so much with the merest gesture or nuance. And if Dean was a sonnet, then Brando was an epic poem. He had the looks. He had the charisma. He had the talent.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“I have always liked women, but from the time I was very young, I have been shy around them. I don’t woo them. I don’t pursue them. Women either respond to you or they don’t, and if they don’t make the first move toward me, I am a bit reluctant to try again. But with Diane this time things were different. We always had a connection. She understood my read on things, and it felt comforting to have someone who got me. So I went after her. We hung out together, and after a couple of months we decided to get together. We found a tempo and a temperature that was right.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“I think back to that moment and I realize that I’m still here because of my mother. Of course that’s who I have to thank, and I never thanked her for it. She’s the one who kept a lid on all of this, who parried me away from the path that led to delinquency, danger, and violence, to the needle, that lethal delight called heroin that killed my three closest friends. Petey, Cliffy, Bruce—they all died from drugs. I was not exactly under strict surveillance, but my mother paid attention to where I was in a way that my friends’ families didn’t, and we all knew it. I believe she saved my life.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“everywhere you go, people know that you’ve accomplished something special, and they treat you that way, for about a week. I guess that’s why we have these holidays like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. We need to be patted on the back, something worthwhile in all that we go through.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“I don’t do anything about a lot of things I should do something about.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns Himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“We shot The Local Stigmatic for a few weeks in Atlanta, with David Wheeler as our director, and a principal cast of myself, Paul Guilfoyle, Joe Maher, and Michael Higgins. When it was finished, we showed the film around to people we admired. We had a great dinner gathering of artists and literati in London. People like Tom Stoppard and David Hare, who all sat at a long table. Harold Pinter had seen the film twice at this point; he sat at the head of the table, and when he wanted to speak to everyone, he rang a little bell and the group fell silent. “Every once in a while,” he said, “we see something different. We come into contact with art in film.” I just sat there stunned. Heathcote was in the room, fiddling with a coin and not looking up at anyone, playing the role of the shy genius. He’d been described as a protégé of Pinter’s, but to actually be in the same room as his literary idol, I guess it all was just too much for him.
I ran the film once for Elaine May, the great actress and filmmaker, who told me, “I liked it very much. But don’t you ever show this to the public. You don’t know your fame. You don’t understand it, and you don’t understand how it registers. You must recognize it.” And she was right. You’re too well-known for this sort of thing. You have to be careful, because you’re going to startle people. Don’t put this in a theater.
I showed it to Jonas Mekas, the independent-film impresario of downtown Manhattan, who ran The Local Stigmatic at his Anthology Film Archives and told me, somewhat optimistically, that I was going to win an Oscar for it. I kept calling Andrew Sarris, the film critic for The Village Voice, to come and see it. And he said, “Stop bothering me, Al. I’ve seen it three times already. I’ve told you what I think. Just show the thing already.” I was trying to get the confidence to screen it for wider audiences. I never did.
I’ve come to realize that when I do my own things, nobody goes. Those avant-garde influences that I was brought up with never left my brain. When I’m left on my own, that’s just what seems to come out. It’s a drawback. People come in with expectations, and they leave angry. The Local Stigmatic is such a specific distillation of me and my take on this subject. It’s 150 proof, which can be a little strong for some people.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“But I don’t have him anymore. Like the line says, one by one, our old friends are gone.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“As Michelangelo said, “Lord free me of myself so I may please you.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“This life is a dream, as Shakespeare says. I think the saddest part about dying is that you lose your memories. Memories are like wings: they keep you flying, like a bird on the wind. If I’m lucky enough, if I get to heaven perhaps I’ll get to reunite with my mother there. All I want is the chance to walk up to her, look in her eyes, and simply say, “Hey, Ma, see what happened to me?”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“It’s like Brecht says in his play In the Jungle of Cities, “In its natural state human skin is too thin for this world. So men take care to see it grows thicker.” Until finally he is bumping into things and not feeling them anymore.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“If you censor yourself because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, I could live with that. But when you censor yourself because you don’t want to jeopardize a job or a career, well, there goes the human experience. How are you going to make real friends if you’re faking it?”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“...so sue me. Shoot bullets through me. You can't do anything different in this town. I learned a little, forgot a little, and moved on. No use crying over spilt Shakespeare.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“There's a strange sensation you start having at a certain age: your memories flash in front of your eyes without asking permission.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“These kinds of gestures help get us through a night—or a lifetime.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“Charlie used to call me “Lonesome Pine.” There I was, walking the city late at night, doing my monologues from O’Neill and Shakespeare on the dark, silent streets, usually in back of warehouses. New York gave me the cool nights and the gift of empty streets to practice on. My audience was the stars and the buildings and the cars parked nearby. If anyone walked past, they would have thought I was crazy; if animal services drove by they’d have netted me like a stray dog. Then I’d get home to my room somewhere in the stratosphere of Manhattan island, alone again, and I’d ponder what the next day would bring. It always did bring something. Perhaps a new encounter, another usher job, or a trek downtown to Washington Square, where Charlie and I would sit and have Chock full o’Nuts coffee on some bench in that park in the middle of winter. Maybe I’d sleep on the stage at the Actors Gallery, like I did when I was performing in Creditors, and Charlie would meet me there in the morning. It was okay. It was all okay.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“Frank, why didn’t you take those payoffs?” I asked him. “Just take that money and give your share away if you didn’t want to keep it?” He said to me, “Al, if I did that”—long pause—“who would I be when I listen to Beethoven?” There was something about that statement that just made me want to play him.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“A New Yorker anywhere outside of New York is an alien.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“But this is just who I am and always was. I look at a situation and I say, what am I doing here? And it seems to not matter where it is, what situation I’m in. I want to leave. I don’t leave, because I really don’t want to be rude, so I stay. But I really want to go.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“And he said, “Because life’s on the wire. The rest is just waiting.” I understood immediately why Charlie was telling me this story. It stuck with me for a long time. Life’s on the wire, man. That’s my acting, my life. When I work, I’m on the wire. When I’m going for it. When I’m taking chances. I want to take chances. I want to fly and fail. I want to bang into something when I do it, because it’s how I know I’m alive. It’s what’s kept me alive.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

“A strange and discordant mix of roles followed. I liked one film I did, The Humbling, because I did it with Barry Levinson. It was based on the novel by Philip Roth, who I met at a party in New York. I found Roth there, sitting in a chair, and he was very serious when he looked at me. I said, “Hi, Mr. Roth. I’m Al Pacino.” He had a look on his face that was haunting. In a cold, impassive voice, he said, “I. Know. Who you are.” I just thought to myself, Well, I’m famous. He’s seen me in films. Maybe he saw The Godfather, I don’t know. But I loved his writing and was a real fan, so I kept spouting to him. I said, “I’m doing a film of your book The Humbling. And it’s very funny.” In that same funereal voice as before, he said, “It’s. Not. Funny.” I said, “No, I know, it’s not really funny. But to get through the drama, sometimes you need a little funny.” Again, he said, “It’s. Not. Funny.” I said, “Sure. Okay. You’re right. It’s not funny.” And I backed out of the room into the street.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“Getting more into one-on-one therapy helped. It helped me to keep going, and it helped me to quit drinking. I almost feel it’s mandatory in my position. C’mon, buddy, you’ve got to get your head shrunk. Because your head gets so big, you need to shrink it. You need to go to some guy who’s going to tell you what you already know about yourself and pay attention to you for an hour straight. Which we all like. We all need a little attention.
The first time I ever considered therapy was back in Boston, during my run in Richard III. I was staying at our director David Wheeler’s house for a few days, and he came into my room one morning to share some good news with me. “Hey, Al!” he said. “You just won the National Board of Review!” It was my first major film award for The Godfather. I said to him, in the softest voice I could summon up, “I was going to ask you, David, do you have the name of a psychiatrist? Because I need one.” That was my answer to him. Not that I was unhappy about winning such a prestigious award, but there were just other things on my mind.
I saw a psychiatrist in Boston first, and then I went and got myself a guy in New York. I fell in love with the process, and I got to a point where I was in therapy five days a week at certain times. I highly recommend therapy if you’re at all leaning in that direction. Maybe you don’t need it five times a week, but give it a whirl. There’s an old story: A woman goes to a therapist for years. It’s her last appointment, because she feels she’s come to a great place in her life and is ready to move on. She wants to congratulate her therapist and say goodbye. So she tells him, “You’ve done so much good for me. I love my husband so much. Every day with my kids is just a joy. My work is going off the charts. I’m seeing a whole new side of life. You’ve been so wonderful. I never hear you speak. You just take it all in. Please tell me, how did you do it?” The doctor looks at her and says, “No habla inglés.” That’s an interpretation of therapy too; you need to talk and get it out. When I was living with Jill, before I ever went to therapy, I used to just sit in the bathtub alone and talk about things. I cleared my mind to myself.
It’s an unusual relationship that you forge when you find a good doctor, someone you feel has that kind of commitment to you. And then they take some colossal amount of time off, and you don’t see them for the whole summer. I had one of those episodes when I couldn’t find my doctor. I might have been spared about twenty years of tsuris if I could have avoided it. It’s a good idea that when your psychiatrist goes away, you know where they are and you can call them when you’re in trouble. They need rest too. I can deal with, “Hey, my daughter’s graduating college, I’ll be out for a few days.” But going up a fucking river somewhere, to not be available for, like, six weeks? Come on, my life was capable of going right off the rails in far less time than that.
I used to have recurring dreams in which I go to my psychiatrist’s office but can’t find him anywhere. He’s in the building, but he’s unavailable. I’m at the door, but there’s not even a buzzer I can press to let him know I’m there and no way to let me in. That was my dream. Now I have that feeling about my agent.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“The sexuality of the character I played in Dog Day Afternoon is a complex thing. What I interpreted from the screenplay was that he is a man with a wife and kids who also happens to be in an affair with a person who identifies as a woman, and who today we would understand is transgender. But knowing this about him didn’t excite me or bother me; it didn’t make the role seem any more appealing or risky. Though I may be a kid who started in the South Bronx, I had been living in the Village since my teens. I had friends, roommates, and colleagues who were attracted to different people than I was attracted to, and none of that was ever rebellious or groundbreaking or unusual. It just was.
Perhaps at the time of Dog Day Afternoon it was an uncommon thing to have a main character in a Hollywood movie who was gay or queer, and who was treated as heroic or worthy of an audience’s affection—even if he did rob banks. But you have to understand that none of that enters into my consideration. I am an actor portraying a character in a film. I am playing the part because I think I can bring something to the role. As far as I was concerned, Dog Day Afternoon was just cool, a continuation of the work I had been doing my whole life. It was inevitable that an audience would have certain feelings about me because of the choices I made, and the slings and arrows were going to keep coming either way. I try to stay away from things that are controversial, and I find myself in controversies anyway. If people think that I helped to advance a particular issue of representation, that’s fine. If there is credit or blame to go around, I don’t feel entitled to any of it. All I know is, I play a role to find as much humanity as there is that I can portray.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“I saw how much it meant to Francis that I play the part of Michael, even more than it meant to me. He saw me in the role, gave me a great opportunity, and he fought for me. And yet we were worlds apart. I actually reached out to him recently and asked him about that time in our life together during The Godfather: Part II. He couldn’t recall it and couldn’t quite say. But I remember it as a period when we were somewhat distant from each other and I’m very grateful it didn’t last long.
Francis and I saw a lot of things the same way, and I admire him greatly. He has a brilliant mind and talent of epic proportions, and I enjoy hearing his take on any subject. He had made this one incredible film and now we were trying to finish a second.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy

“I’m popping Valiums and waiting for something. To my left was Jeff Bridges. I could still tell time at that point. I looked at my watch, and I thought, This is crazy. They haven’t gotten anywhere near to the Best Actor award. So I turned to Jeff, who I would come to know in the future as one of the most wonderful human beings and such a great actor. But at the time, I didn’t know him at all, and I guess the impending dissipation of my altered state led me to say, “Hi, excuse me,” as he looked at me like he was looking down from ten feet high. I said to him, “The hour is almost up. I guess they’re not going to get to the Best Actor.” He considered me like I was some poor, pathetic wretch. “It’s three hours long, man. Three hours long.” And I said, “Oh. Thank you.” I went numb after that.”
― Al Pacino, Sonny Boy