Alan Arkin Quotes

Well, you just know, as a writer, I didn't really write one of the five best screenplays of the year. There were lots of brilliant screenplays; I was just one of the lucky ones who got nominated.

All my life, I was even just wanted to attend the Grammys, like, just be there, so the fact that I'm nominated for Best New Artist, it feels like a dream.

There is something so arbitrary about prizes.

When you do a film, all you want is to make the best film possible. You don't think about Oscars. But it's really flattering. Please, bring it on!

Being named among the best at something is special and beautiful. But if there are no titles, nothing is won.

I have won many awards and I am very happy about this, but I am not the best player in the world.

Awards mean absolutely nothing if you don't get it. If you do get it, they're the best thing in the world.

I haven't won any prizes or had any best sellers.

Everything around us is scale dependent. It's woven into the fabric of the universe.

People who are successful should never forget that it's 90 per cent luck. You've got to be an eejit to be an egomaniac. I had my glory years - 'Blankety Blank,' the talk show, when I was winning every award going.

If you buy a lottery ticket, you really don't expect to win. However, if you do win, it's a different story. The same is true about getting an Oscar. Of course I knew I was nominated, but I never expected my name to be called. When it was, I'm still at a loss to describe the feelings that I experienced.

Awards are not something that I measure my work by. I've been so fortunate and I've gotten to do such terrific things that it seems petty to look back and say, 'Oh, I should have gotten that prize.' I've been so blessed, it's hard to look back and think anything but that, so I have no disappointments.

I can't say I believe in prizes. I was a whiz in the three-legged race - that's something you CAN win.

Every dog has his day.

The true law of economics is chance, and we learned people arbitrarily seize on a few moments and establish them as laws.

If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.

In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.

This past year, we received our second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Informational Series. While we'd all like to win, I can say with utmost sincerity that it mattered more to me that we got noticed than whether or not we win.

I feel relief about the Oscars. You know, you're not in this business for prizes but, okay, I missed one.

A man will work and slave in obscurity for ten years and then become famous in ten minutes.

But really, there are no coincidences. Coincidences are just other people's choices, plans you don't know about.

As far as I'm concerned, there is only one study and that is the way in which things relate to one another.

It feels like a rash. It suddenly seems like I've got a contagion of diseases, I mean awards. But it's nice, it's a nice feeling. It's so weird, because I'm only 46. A lifetime Achievement award... it feels like 'I'm not over yet'. I hope they're not trying to say it's time to stop. I'm only just getting the gist of it.

Success in business, as in life, is often largely just a matter of luck.

I wish I could tell you that the Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street were thanks to my genius, but it really was a lucky break.