Welcome to our collection of quotes by Sylvester Stallone
Wikipedia Summary for Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Enzio Stallone (born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, (1946-07-06)July 6, 1946) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, he won his first critical acclaim as an actor for his co-starring role as Stanley Rosiello in The Lords of Flatbush. Stallone subsequently found gradual work as an extra or side character in films with a sizeable budget until he achieved his greatest critical and commercial success as an actor, starting in 1976 with his self-created role as boxer Rocky Balboa, in the first film of the successful Rocky series (1976–present). In the films, Rocky is portrayed as an underdog boxer who fights numerous brutal opponents, and wins the world heavyweight championship twice.
In 1977, Stallone was the third actor in cinema to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. Stallone's film Rocky was inducted into the National Film Registry, and had its props placed in the Smithsonian Museum. Stallone's use of the front entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Rocky series led the area to be nicknamed the Rocky Steps. Philadelphia has a statue of his character Rocky placed permanently near the museum, and he was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Up until 1982, Stallone's films were not big box office successes unless they were Rocky sequels, and none received the critical acclaim achieved with the first Rocky. This changed with the successful action film First Blood in which he portrayed the PTSD-plagued soldier John Rambo. He would play the role in a total of five Rambo films (1982–2019). From the mid 1980s through to the late 1990s, Stallone would go on to become one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors of that era by appearing in a slew of commercially successful action films, but generally panned by critics. These include Cobra, Tango and Cash, Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, and The Specialist.
Stallone saw a decline in popularity in the early 2000s, but rebounded back to prominence in 2006 with a sixth installment in the Rocky series and 2008 with a fourth in the Rambo series. In the 2010s, Stallone launched The Expendables films series (2010–2014), in which he played the lead as the mercenary Barney Ross. In 2013, he starred in the successful Escape Plan, and acted in its sequels. In 2015, Stallone returned to the Rocky series with Creed, that serve as spin-off films focusing on Adonis "Donnie" Creed played by Michael B. Jordan, the son of the ill-fated boxer Apollo Creed, to whom the long-retired Rocky is a mentor. Reprising the role brought Stallone praise, and his first Golden Globe award for the first Creed, as well as a third Oscar nomination, having been first nominated for the same role 40 years prior.
Stallone is the only actor in the history of U.S. cinema to have starred in a box office number one film across five consecutive decades.
I just fight in my movies, never in real life.
Movies are the work of a collective conscious. It takes 500-800 people on a movie to complete a vision.
Just because society says I'm old doesn't mean I am.
The world will never come together and say, 'We are one.'
I've made a lot of career mistakes. A lot. Actually, a lot of personal ones, too.
All young men want to prove themselves.
Your brain is triggered to produce.
Remember the mind is your best muscle. Big arms can move rocks, but big words can move mountains. Ride the brain train for success.
Until you start believing in yourself, you aint gonna have a life!
I love art more than anything in the world except for my family.
You have to be really loyal to the people that supported you when you were coming up.
Certain characters, mostly heroes, have to be the straight silent type; that is part of the make-up.
I'm perceived to be this solitary character, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.
When a parent loses a child, there is no greater pain.
I've always boxed a certain way. But with Rocky, the character himself had to be kind of awkward. So I had to learn to fight that way.
I never started out to be an action actor. I was an ensemble actor.
Longer Version:
I never started out to be an action actor. I was an ensemble actor. "Rocky" was an ensemble film. "F.I.S.T." was an ensemble. "Paradise Alley" was an ensemble.
If you're gonna be a failure, at least be one at something you enjoy.
I'm the Hiroshima of love.
I've always said that the artist dies twice. And the first death is the hardest which is the career death, the creative death. The physical death is an inevitability.
Lighting can bring out certain contours in the body, in the face, in the eyes, that otherwise flat lighting couldn't.
I'd live in a museum if I could. I used to spend hours and hours in the Museum of Modern Art.
The way to be successful in Hollywood is to be as obnoxious as the next guy.
I've had a lot of operations. I'm kind of like Franken-actor.
Polo is like tennis -- you literally have to live it.
Rocky is a very predictable movie. The ending is a foregone conclusion.
Real love is when you become selfless and you are more concerned about your mate's or children's egos than your own. You're now a giver instead of a taker.
I watch a lot of news, and I watch musical shows because I think the music of the young people is really their news reports. They let you know how their country is going through their eyes, and about their experiences in the everyday shock of growing up.
Boxing is the only sport where you have the audience coming right up to you and saying, You Stink. And you got to deal with that. It's like being in front of the lions.
You have to grab life by the throat and squeeze before it grabs you by your neck and breaks it. Own your destiny.
Action film is really easy to do, you just get in a car and smash through things and it's called action. The real key is what happens between the action when it's quiet. Loud is easy. Quiet, real hard.
Characters I've played, they used to impact my paintings, like 80 percent of the time, and especially when I was doing an action film.
I think kids growing up, if they were picked on and feeling inferior at 12, they're going to feel that way at 72. You just deal with it better. I'm serious.
The men in Vietnam weren't allowed to fight the war with any kind of concern to win by the government. It was like a war of attrition.
Consider the source...Don't be a fool by listening to a fool.
Movies are a whole different ball-game, now. It's much more of a business -- very scientific.
Everyone has this conjecture that action films are somewhat less prestigious than dramatic films. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've done them both and this is hard and dangerous.
Rocky would definitely run for councilman. Maybe mayor. But these people are actually most effective in the family unit. That's where they shine.
Clichés are what good writing is all about. Because our lives are basically clichés.
You're a disease. And I'm the cure.
Making a movie is the same as an orchestra; it's moving all the different instruments and the sounds, the kinetic and the auditory and the visual all together. I'm probably the trombone.
Crunches are much more effective than regular sit-ups because they specifically target your upper abdominal muscles rather than your hip muscles. If you're not used to them, they can cause soreness a day or two later, but it's a 'cool' soreness. A badge of honor.
The champion's management says let's do this for real, for charity. Rocky says no but decides to be true to himself even though he's going to be berated by everyone. Just to compete, not to win.
Racing's very much like the world of acting. You have your front runners and you have guys that are there for the long race, and you have other guys that block for other people, that are called supporting and character actors. It's all the same kind of situation.
If I'd made it right away as an actor, I would've stopped at a certain level and stayed there, probably as a character actor.
I think there's a kind of built-in arrogance to anyone who considers themself an artist. They want to feel as though like they can run the whole spectrum. I can do it all. I can do minimalism, and I can do classical art. Well, that's not true.
I realized, the older I get, the more difficult life becomes. It's not easier, it's more difficult.
People assume that 'The Expendables' is old school, but it's only old school because that's the way I know how to make an action film. It's pretty real.
Painting is as close as a person can get to actually capturing the heat of the moment.
Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you're gonna have. It's pathetic. It really is pathetic. It's sad. We're living in the Dark Ages over there.
I guess the best thing I do of all is ride. Horsemanship, I have a natural flair for it.
With writing, I think you have to be honest with yourself. I have a certain kind of writing; that is, I like to really embellish the human spirit. You have to write about something you have a feel for.
The problem is, your ego sometimes tells you that you can do many things. But sometimes it's best to stay focused and be honest with yourself.
Art is the ability to communicate through an intermediary and to convey one's feelings through an isolated object. It's inspiration and incubation. Putting my subjective feelings into an objective form and then on to you for a subjective interpretation.
No one's life is totally morbid. Even on a subtle scale there's little flashes of enlightenment and of happiness and joy.
Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.
If it's not broken, break it. That's how new discoveries are made. That's why everything that changes life is called a breakthrough.
I thought marriage was tough. Golf's like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel! It's a psychological game that gets into your blood.
Age is a state of old mind. It gets to a point where if you get old enough, you forget how old you are, and that's the best thing. And then you walk around kind of like in a fog.
The world meets nobody halfway. When you want something, you gotta take it.
I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who beat the odds through just plain determination. ... that I persevered. Because I think that being somewhat of a pest to life, constantly plaguing and pursuing, will bring results.
Plan B. You've always got to have a Plan B.
I thought I had reached a point in life where everything would be smooth. But it is not. It just gets more jagged and pitted and filled with turns that take you into the dark recesses of your mind. It never seems to get easy.
Movies are a collective art. Art by proxy.
I think people of all occupations, whether it's the camera -- puller or the man who's doing the catering, they can identify with Rambo's frustrations, with the veteran's frustrations.
I try to eliminate as much dialogue as possible, and I guess Rambo is my really best experiment with how to eliminate dialogue.
Back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million dollar equipment, back here I can't even hold a job PARKING CARS!
When you're pushed killing is as easy as breathing.
I wanted to show I had balls at age 60. Just because society says I'm old, doesn't mean that I am. I'm pursuing happiness, even if it makes the people around me unhappy.
There aren't a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.
I just want to say that, all you do, no matter how bad your diet is, for the first six months or year, I just reduce the amount, even if it's horrible stuff. That you can deal with it.
Time is truly the great enemy. It's not the great healer, it's the great stealer.
When I was cognizant of the war, I was very angry at the street-corner liberals who were trying to defame the footsoldier. Because there was a man who had no choice. He was a cog in the wheel, just trying to survive. I was always aware of that.
I think there comes a time when you realize that you need God in your life, God's Word, and the spiritual guidance that only He can give.
You can actually alter a person's perception when they're that young. I mean, it can affect them in a very positive way.
When you are young, you often think that the world spins around you. You think you can do anything, can take the world on your shoulders.
If you look back at life, I bet you will regret about 80% of your actions. But life consists of all mistakes.
Sometimes worst enemies like a Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier that's what makes you fight so hard. Without them they never would have achieved greatness.
That's the hardest thing about doing sequels -- you've lost the element of surprise.
Life's not about how hard of a hit you can give... it's about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.
At the very end, the one person who Rambo should kill, he doesn't kill. He lets it live. Because you can't kill that kind of hypocritical bureaucracy. It goes on forever.
It's great the way the old-time directors used to manipulate the hell out of you. You see someone dying and all of a sudden a ghost would come out and they go walking hand in hand up the stairway.
We do two things in life: We race the clock and everything is a struggle. One way or not, it's a metaphorical battle all of the time.
I love being so tight on people in close-ups that the veins in their eyes look like the Mississippi River.
Boxing is a great way to vent. I don't know if there is a better way, I think for women too. There is something so primal about it and it's the best exercise in the world, even if you don't ever get in the ring.
I'm astounded by people who take eighteen years to write something. That's how long it took that guy to write Madame Bovary, and was that ever on the best-seller list?
I wish my daughters would box. I'm so worried about the guys coming up to them. I would love them to be able to smack a guy right off a bar stool.
Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.
We follow a certain pattern, a maze, if you will, every day, tracing our steps into certain districts and neighborhoods and back home. So it's easy for people to relate to clichés. That's why comedy routines are based on mutual experiences of clichés.