Alphonso Joseph d’Abruzzo (b.1936,) known only as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, and writer. He is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce on the television series M*A*S*H 1972–83, for which he won seven Emmy and Golden Globe awards. His notable films include Same Time, Next Year (1978,) California Suite (1978,) The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979,) Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989,) and Everyone Says I Love You (1996.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Alan Alda
It’s too bad I’m not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Fame
When people are laughing, they’re generally not killing each other.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Laughter
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Thinking, Light, Assumptions
Real listening is a willingness to let the other persons change you.
—Alan Alda
Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Wilderness, Potential, Risk, Self-Discovery, Discovery, Creativity
Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe—you can’t take a taxi.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Originality
It isn’t necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It’s only necessary to be rich.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Happiness
Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
—Alan Alda
Topics: Laughter, Doubt, Risk-taking
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