Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by William Shatner, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring William Shatner quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 218 William Shatner quotes for you to read and share.
It was the early 1970s and I was recently divorced. I had three kids and was totally broke. I managed to find work back east on the straw-hat circuit - summer stock - but couldn't afford hotels, so I lived out of the back of my truck, under a hard shell. -- William Shatner
I'm not technically adept at music, but I'd love to be part of a discussion of where progressive rock ends and country music begins. -- William Shatner
I love to evoke the bones and meat and thoughts of characters. -- William Shatner
Getting that audience approval is always a question mark, and it's always that flag that flutters in front of you. -- William Shatner
What does God need with a starship? -- William Shatner
My boy, that was a TV show. I used a stunt double. I always use a stunt double. Except in love scenes. I insist on doing those myself. -- William Shatner
I love cameras but I find myself reluctantly taking pictures because what's past is past. -- William Shatner
We live in grief for having left the womb, for having left the teat, then school, then home. In my case, it was leaving marriages, and the death of my wife. -- William Shatner
I'm interested in man's march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with the vomit hovering over me. -- William Shatner
Don't be afraid to make an ass of yourself. I do it all the time, and look what I got. (Spoken at a graduation ceremony while holding aloft an honorary doctoral degree from McGill University) -- William Shatner
The ability to breathe the air and drink the water will be what the wars will be about from here on in. And it's coming with alarming rapidity. -- William Shatner
I'm so not ready to die. It petrifies me. I go alone. I go to a place I don't know. It might be painful. It might be the end. My thought is that it is the end. I become nameless, and I spent a lifetime being known. -- William Shatner
Why does the lizard stick his tongue out? The lizard sticks its tongue out because that's the way its listening and looking and tasting its environment. It's its means of appreciating what's in front of it. -- William Shatner
I envy the people who say, 'oh, well, I've got my name in the golden book and I'm going to be entered into the pearly gates.' -- William Shatner
There's a joy and a pain about directing where the dreams you have are becoming concrete but the attention to detail, the need for time is such that it's overwhelming at times, and the stream of responsibility. -- William Shatner
I had a major in business, and I graduated with a business degree, but I was perhaps the worst student to graduate from that program. -- William Shatner
Everyone knows everything about all of us. That's too much knowledge! -- William Shatner
All in all, Kirk's character is something I am very proud of. -- William Shatner
Gradually the live TV scene simmered out, replaced by film, and that took place in L.A. So many actors left New York. -- William Shatner
My kids say if there's any family dinner that doesn't result in somebody crying, it's not a good dinner. They cry because it helps relieve them of a guilt or some onerous emotional burden. It's like a family tradition. -- William Shatner
I love technology. Matches, to light a fire, is really high tech. The wheel is really one of the great inventions of all time. Other than that, I am an ignoramus about technology. -- William Shatner
There's an ecstasy about doing something really good on film: the composition of a shot, the drama within the shot, the texture ... It's palpable. -- William Shatner
I want to discover a truth for myself that is really true. Whether it's a piece of scientific knowledge, or a philosophical truth. -- William Shatner
It's irksome to read about someone I don't recognize. It frightens me. -- William Shatner
I love to go to a movie, get a Diet Coke and a barrel of popcorn, and sit there with my kids and watch a film. -- William Shatner
If you read my books, especially the Star Trek books and the Quest for Tomorrow books, you'll see in them the core theme of the basic humanistic questions that Star Trek asked. -- William Shatner
I find age such a foreign concept. I have to be reminded. I still have the extraordinary feeling of adventure, striking out into unknown fields. -- William Shatner
I slept for four days when I turned 40. -- William Shatner
I love the musicality of words. -- William Shatner
Over the years, I've become barraged by comments from people, such as, 'Beam me up, Scotty!' and I became defensive. I felt they were derisive and engendered an attitude. I am grateful for the success, but didn't want to be mocked. -- William Shatner
The possibilities that are suggested in quantum physics tell us that everything that we're looking at may not be in fact there, so the underlying nature of being is weird. -- William Shatner
I have had mystical experiences with horses. I felt they were communicating with me in horse communication. -- William Shatner
Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life. -- William Shatner
My beautiful wife is dead. She meant everything to me. Her laughter, her tears and her joy will remain with me the rest of my life. -- William Shatner
I'm not going to have a tombstone. I'm going to be tossed in the air. Ashes, tossed like a salad. -- William Shatner
Ads need to be little pieces of entertainment. -- William Shatner
The political scene is already so turgid, it doesn't need more of that from me. -- William Shatner
Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell! I rest my case. -- William Shatner
Stop and smell the garlic! That's all you have to do. -- William Shatner
Avatar is a watershed movie. We'll always refer to Lawrence of Arabia in the same way. We'll always look at Avatar and say, "That's about as good as it gets." It's an enormous advance, in every way, shape and form, of movie making. -- William Shatner
The essence of paint ball is the fact that when you get hit by a ball full of paint, it hurts just enough to say, 'Ow, I gotta get out of the way,' but not enough to say, 'I quit.' -- William Shatner
Don't waste your time trying to get into my head. There's nothing there. -- William Shatner
Conquest is easy. Control is not. -- William Shatner
One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it. -- William Shatner
I've got rock 'n' roll in my blood. -- William Shatner
I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through. -- William Shatner
My wife and my three kids and my grandchildren are my life, but my horses and my dogs are everything else. -- William Shatner
So bitcoin is cyber snob currency ... -- William Shatner
I also derive a great deal of pleasure from horses and dogs ... the ocean ... and love. -- William Shatner
Writing is truly a creative art - putting word to a blank piece of paper and ending up with a full-fledged story rife with character and plot. -- William Shatner
My fear is dying badly, through illness or injury. But what a glorious demise it would be to burn up in space. -- William Shatner
When you've done the technical part, you're then into the joy, the zen, into being. Technology no longer exists for you. You're then into the mystery of the thing you're doing. -- William Shatner
The great mystery of our consciousness is beyond our grasp. -- William Shatner
A director is a choreographer, both politically and creatively. -- William Shatner
If we can clean up our world, I'll bet you we can achieve warp drive. -- William Shatner
Mythology needs heroes and it needs villains, it needs heroes to fail, it needs heroes to struggle. -- William Shatner
I'm coming little animal!. -- William Shatner
When I was out for the Christmas Holidays in school, I would go skiing up to the mountains and there they had Santa on a sled. Pulled by horses and other reindeer, it was a very, very picturesque time and that struck me very emphatically then and has remained with me all this time. -- William Shatner
Careers are here and they're gone. No matter how great we think we are, we're nothing but the temples of Ozymandias-we're ruins in the making. -- William Shatner
I love horses. There's something practical and mystical about them. -- William Shatner
We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions. -- William Shatner
I'm gonna reveal something to you that's going to come as a shock: If you're a stupid young man, you're usually a stupid old man. Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes. -- William Shatner
Success is different for everyone; everybody defines it in their own way, and that's part of what we do in 'Close Up', finding what it was each person wanted to achieve and what their willingness to sacrifice for that was. -- William Shatner
You might as well aim high. Why shoot yourself in the foot when you can shoot yourself in the head? -- William Shatner
I think the acting satisfies the need and desire for approval. -- William Shatner
Writing an acceptance speech gives you the expectation of winning, and you are therefore devastated or hurt if you didn't win. -- William Shatner
I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work. -- William Shatner
Pain and guilt can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They're the things that we carry with us, they're the things that make us what we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away, I need my pain! -- William Shatner
At 40, I went to bed for three days. I thought my life is over. -- William Shatner
How do I stay so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways. -- William Shatner
I think the supernatural is a catch-all for everything we don't understand about the vast other parts of life that we cannot perceive. -- William Shatner
Well-written words are music. -- William Shatner
But if you want to know the truth, the weirdest thing that has happened has been my discovery that people who attend the conventions are filled with love. -- William Shatner
I am not a Starfleet commander, or T.J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-1701, or own a phaser. And I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock. -- William Shatner
I was built for the long run, not for the short dash, I guess. -- William Shatner
The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling. -- William Shatner
I frequently dream of being on these horses' backs and running across a field. And the horse and I are one. -- William Shatner
Voice acting is very interesting, I've done several animated projects, and you have to make the voice reflect the character and try and do as much with a word as you can with a look in a live-action film. -- William Shatner
I think you die the way you live. -- William Shatner
I spent years doing 'Star Trek' bits and things, and a lot of people loved it, a lot of people mocked it. -- William Shatner
I'm surfing the giant life wave. -- William Shatner
Oh, for God's sake ... get a life, will you? -- William Shatner
Spencer Tracy was a man who did very much what I do on a set, and that is, he comes down and he does his job, and then he goes back to his dressing room. -- William Shatner
The pictures remind you of something that can never be recaptured, the time is gone, the only thing you know is the present. That's all that's knowable and even the present isn't knowable. The present becomes the past ... so you really don't know anything. -- William Shatner
So many dot-com companies were formulated on air. -- William Shatner
I enjoyed reading all the classic authors like Isaac Asimov and Bradbury. -- William Shatner
These people who come to Comic-Con and dress up - all across the country, the rest of the population who doesn't understand are scoffing at them. -- William Shatner
I didn't want to do the sitcom thing, but I didn't know what else to do. -- William Shatner
Divorce is probably as painful as death. -- William Shatner
All I know is that I am constantly intrigued by something I'm doing. -- William Shatner
I have been accused of never saying no. -- William Shatner
A tree you pass by every day is just a tree. If you are to closely examine what a tree has and the life a tree has, even the smallest thing can withstand a curiosity, and you can examine whole worlds. -- William Shatner
Memories were the markers of the journey through life. It was necessary to know where you had come from. Only then could you know where you were going. -- William Shatner
My dad died of a stroke. -- William Shatner
I'm anxious to make another film. -- William Shatner
Things people say strike me as amusing, and I am prone to saying out loud what everybody's thinking. -- William Shatner
My site has the whole thing - blogs, information, video interviews. -- William Shatner
The longer I go about living, I see it's the relationship that is most meaningful. -- William Shatner
Every piece of entertainment is made with the idea that 'This is going to be terrific' and 'This is the best thing I've ever done' and then it hits the public and then the public tells you whether it's good or bad. -- William Shatner
Acting is easier - writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious. -- William Shatner
I love the concept of togetherness and the entwinement of marriage. -- William Shatner
Is there a God? There is, but we don't know where. Or who. And, indeed, why. -- William Shatner
Marriage is a reflection of your life in general: how you treat people, how you argue, how secure you are in your own thoughts. How vehemently do you argue your point of view? With what disdain do you view the other's point of view? -- William Shatner
What is down will go up. At the same time, you have to be prepared for what is up to go down. -- William Shatner
I like making people laugh. It comes off and shines in everything I do. -- William Shatner
I don't think of myself as being tied. -- William Shatner
Sci-fi films are the epic films of the day because we can no longer put 10,000 extras in the scene - but we can draw thousands of aliens with computers. -- William Shatner
The name Shatner is Austrian and partly Germanic, and there's Germanic reticence and silence perhaps, but there is passion underneath. -- William Shatner
If someone criticizes my acting, they may be right. -- William Shatner
We're all embers from the same fire. Our ember winks out, we're ashes, we go back to the fire. -- William Shatner
Here's something pompous - you take your day and artistically create it, so every moment has an artistic flavor. -- William Shatner
My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian! -- William Shatner
A stage actor has to be 10% aware of the audience as he's performing. -- William Shatner
When I did the film Generations, in which the character died, I felt like a guest for the first time. That made me very sad. -- William Shatner
Let women figure out why they won't sleep with you. Don't do their work for them. -- William Shatner
The basic quality that any great story must have is a story that illustrates the human condition. -- William Shatner
I think making a good film shot is joyful. -- William Shatner
I've come to the conclusion that athletes, when they say they miss the crowd, are not missing the sound of the crowd. What they're missing is the feeling inside that makes the crowd roar. It's not the roar of the crowd, it's the silence inside. -- William Shatner
With three kids, it was always very, very tight, and it was always a scramble for what was my next job. So I learned never to go into debt because I don't want those monthly payments to preoccupy my thoughts. -- William Shatner
In my proudest moments, I think I had a real hand in the creative force of making 'Star Trek.' But most of the time, I don't think about it. -- William Shatner
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day. -- William Shatner
Remember - you can't beam through a force field. So, don't try it. -- William Shatner
I know very little about the viral, electronic world, but I use Twitter to communicate not only information that I think some of the fans want to hear about but also ideas. -- William Shatner
You have to create your life. You have to carve it, like a sculpture. -- William Shatner
There was nothing lonelier than a man with a million friends. -- William Shatner
My understanding is, the fans are so ravenous in Canada, they gnaw on the stars. -- William Shatner
I was always working. Maybe you weren't aware of the movies I was making, or the television I was doing, or the shows I was creating, or the books I was writing; there have been thirty. But I have always been solidly at work, running as fast as I can. -- William Shatner
When there are tiers of meaning in an ad it intrigues the audience and they look for it again and again. -- William Shatner
I watch movies and sports. I can count on the fingers of my hand the number of times I have watched an hour show. I never watch a half-hour show, and I never watch myself. -- William Shatner
The problem is I don't know anything or anyone. I am so focused on the immediate picture in front of me. -- William Shatner
I am curious about many things, and find the world around me, and the people and objects and things in it, equally fascinating. There is a great deal of that awe and wonder in me. -- William Shatner
My hope is that I can characterize something with enough emphasis that it is very different from myself, the actor. If -- William Shatner
Montreal is a very cosmopolitan, sophisticated, erudite, educated, glorious city today. But it wasn't quite that way when I was growing up there. There was a lot of anti-Semitism. And I had to deal with that in an area of the city that had very few Jews. -- William Shatner
Being an icon is overrated, remember an icon can be moved by a mouse -- William Shatner
I'm just quizzical about how things work and why things are. -- William Shatner
I never watched 'Star Trek.' -- William Shatner
I see people putting text messages on the phone or computer and I think, 'Why don't you just call?' -- William Shatner
I've blundered my way through life. -- William Shatner
I've been breeding Dobies for years. Almost won the breed in Westminster at one time. -- William Shatner
I'm not out to convince anybody of anything. -- William Shatner
When I'm interviewing somebody I don't work from prepared questions. -- William Shatner
Don't be afraid of making an ass of yourself. I do it all the time and look what I got. -- William Shatner
I often conduct interviews in my truck. -- William Shatner
You know, the process of making a documentary is one of discovery, and like writing a story, you follow a lead and that leads you to something else and then by the time you finish, the story is nothing like you expected. -- William Shatner
The mysteriousness and mystique of space is such, that science fiction attempts to tantalize you by telling you a story that could possibly be out there and that's the appeal of science fiction. -- William Shatner
My mother was an exuberant, silly lady. -- William Shatner
I don't know how I got to this point but it must be as a result of everything that has come before so if I were to change something, I might not be at this point now. -- William Shatner
Death is an absolute marvel. -- William Shatner
Nobody could have imagined the phenomenon that 'Star Trek' became. It's still almost impossible to imagine. -- William Shatner
I've never been without a dog. I've made trips across the country with a dog. -- William Shatner
We were basically one and the same, although Jim [Kirk] was just about perfect, and, of course, I am perfect. -- William Shatner
I can't type. Can't do it. -- William Shatner
You need to be silly to be funny. -- William Shatner
Your cadence is your music. -- William Shatner
The truth can't be hidden for long. -- William Shatner
She's still your mother." Meaning no matter what she's done, how much you don't understand her, you will treat her with respect. She's still your mother. -- William Shatner
Somewhere in university, I realized that I hadn't been to classes in months, and I'd get tired to the point of narcolepsy doing anything other than some form of performing, directing, writing, or acting. -- William Shatner
No, I don't regret anything at this point. That may change on the next phone call, but at the moment I don't regret anything. -- William Shatner
I can't stand the gossip of celebrities' lives, all the time! Every minute! -- William Shatner
The actor is in the hands of a lot of other people, over which he has no control. -- William Shatner
Although I'm a business major out of McGill University, I know nothing ... but then I found out much later in life, nobody knows anything. -- William Shatner
I sometimes find that in interviews you learn more about yourself than the person learned about you. -- William Shatner
A true pilot must of necessity pay attention to the seasons, the heavens, the stars, the winds, and everything proper to the craft if he is really to rule a ship. -- William Shatner
If you make a fool of yourself, you can do it with dignity, without taking your pants down. And if you do take your pants down, you can still do it with dignity. -- William Shatner
Never buy anything that eats while you sleep. -- William Shatner
I'm a performer, comedian, entertainer, writer and director. -- William Shatner
A sense of the unknown has always lured mankind and the greatest of the unknowns of today is outer space. The terrors, the joys and the sense of accomplishment are epitomized in the space program. -- William Shatner
I thought I was loved. -- William Shatner
Fate gives you the finger and you accept. -- William Shatner
There were many times when I kept silent about being Jewish as I got older, when Jewish jokes were told. -- William Shatner
And I enjoyed the celebrity and the creativity that was involved in Star Trek. -- William Shatner
I hate flying, flat out hate its guts. -- William Shatner
This is my saddest story: In grade school, they would have us open our Valentine's cards and read them out loud. I always sent cards to myself because nobody else did. -- William Shatner
I guess the disc jockey thought I was trying to sing or something so ... they had fun with it. But the reality was that it was something, there was a concept behind it. -- William Shatner
A pretty girl is certainly comparable to a good horse. -- William Shatner
Every day I realized I would not be a star. -- William Shatner
If I'm given an opportunity to do something, I do it. Or else I fool around with it. -- William Shatner
You and I and everybody in show business and the entertainment industry fly by the seat of our pants. We don't know quite what is going to happen. -- William Shatner
I played comedies and dramas. -- William Shatner
I've been in that angst of loneliness, where you're really alone in the universe, except for the dog. -- William Shatner
The only subject I know anything about is myself and I don't know that too clearly. -- William Shatner
Nature is perfect. -- William Shatner
I always thought that the spine of a character was awe and wonder. -- William Shatner
If saving money is wrong, I don't want to be right! -- William Shatner
I believe in taking what happens as inevitable. -- William Shatner
It's very easy to say no to leaving the house. -- William Shatner
No matter how prosaic something is that you've done and been a part of again and again, there is so much more there that you haven't seen. -- William Shatner
What part of me was born with the courage to stand in front of strangers and risk rejection? -- William Shatner
I don't think in terms of God. -- William Shatner
Tabloid stuff just offends. -- William Shatner
Instead of playing something heavily, I play it lightly. Since people like to cast cyclically, once you've done one thing, people want to put you in that bag again. And since I want to work, I let it happen. -- William Shatner
There's too many people in the world. -- William Shatner
I had been in a Shakespeare company for three years and done a lot of Shakespeare. That was fun. That was interesting. -- William Shatner
I believe that when things happen, they happen with a purpose. -- William Shatner
My dad was good with actions. -- William Shatner
I find the whole time travel question very unsettling if you take it to its logical extension. I think it might eventually be possible, but then what happens? -- William Shatner
Youth is the ultimate limited resource. -- William Shatner
The good life is one that's artistically made. -- William Shatner
A series is filled with compromises. -- William Shatner
If there's anything I'm not pompous about, it's myself or my work. But I seem to be able to play it. -- William Shatner
I'm always open to the possibility that somebody's got a better idea than I have. It happens with some frequency. -- William Shatner
I'm looking for the perfect paintball movie. -- William Shatner
Captain Kirk has been a source of pleasure and income for a long time. -- William Shatner
Yeah, I do stand-up, my own type of stand-up. -- William Shatner
I love living in Los Angeles. -- William Shatner
Success should always be just beyond your grasp. -- William Shatner
Regret is the worst human emotion. If you took another road, you might have fallen off a cliff. I'm content. -- William Shatner
I see myself as an actor with a love of music. -- William Shatner
I don't want people to know me. I want them to believe my version. -- William Shatner
I didn't realize that, in doing a documentary, there is this process of discovery. It's not like a film or a play with a set script. It sort of reveals itself. -- William Shatner
All any artist can do is please themselves. -- William Shatner
In entertainment, whether it's movies or television or whatever, I'm a great audience, but I don't remember the names of the people I've seen or the groups that I've heard. -- William Shatner
I don't know how to deal with being 80. -- William Shatner
Everybody has their 15 minutes, and those 15 minutes should be spent in a private limo and a private plane. It's the ultimate. -- William Shatner
The idea of being a professional actor never occurred to anybody, including myself, for a long time. -- William Shatner
I've never not appeared in front of a live audience for any longer period than a month or two. -- William Shatner
My plan has always been to return to Broadway every 50 years. -- William Shatner
When I direct and have to look at filmed scenes of myself, I suck. -- William Shatner