William Shatner

William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, author, producer, and director. In his seven decades of television, Shatner became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise, in the Star Trek franchise. Shatner has also worked as a musician, an author, a director, and a celebrity pitchman.

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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.

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.

How do I stay so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways.

I sometimes find that in interviews you learn more about yourself than the person learned about you.

The basic quality that any great story must have is a story that illustrates the human condition.

I love technology.

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.

My wife, and my three kids, and my grandchildren are my life, but my horses and my dogs are everything else.

So many dot-com companies were formulated on air.

I also derive a great deal of pleasure from horses and dogs... the ocean... and love.

I love living in Los Angeles.

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.

Well-written words are music.

I see people putting text messages on the phone or computer and I think 'Why don't you just call?'

All in all Kirk's character is something I am very proud of.

Nature is perfect.

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.'

Everybody has their 15 minutes and those 15 minutes should be spent in a private limo and a private plane. It's the ultimate.

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.

You need to be silly to be funny.

Getting that audience approval is always a question mark and it's always that flag that flutters in front of you.

I don't read reviews.

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.

I thought I was loved.

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.

Captain Kirk has been a source of pleasure and income for a long time.

If we can clean up our world I'll bet you we can achieve warp drive.

My understanding is the fans are so ravenous in Canada they gnaw on the stars.

Tabloid stuff just offends.

I hate flying, flat out hate its guts.

I never watched 'Star Trek.'

The political scene is already so turgid it doesn't need more of that from me.

The name Shatner is Austrian and partly Germanic and there's Germanic reticence and silence perhaps but there is passion underneath.

When there are tiers of meaning in an ad it intrigues the audience and they look for it again and again.

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.

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.

I'm looking for the perfect paintball movie.

I did a movie in Esperanto.

Nobody could have imagined the phenomenon that 'Star Trek' became. It's still almost impossible to imagine.

I think making a good film shot is joyful.

Acting is easier - writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious.

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.

Gradually the live TV scene simmered out replaced by film and that took place in L.A. So many actors left New York.

My dad was good with actions.

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.

I love to evoke the bones and meat and thoughts of characters.

Divorce is probably as painful as death.

Success should always be just beyond your grasp.

My name is William Shatner and I am Canadian!

I'm an optimist.

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.

I love the concept of togetherness and the entwinement of marriage.

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.

I played comedies and dramas.

I've got rock 'n' roll in my blood.

All any artist can do is please themselves.

It's irksome to read about someone I don't recognize. It frightens me.

I can't stand the gossip of celebrities' lives all the time! Every minute!

I had been in a Shakespeare company for three years and done a lot of Shakespeare. That was fun. That was interesting.

Yeah I do stand-up my own type of stand-up.

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.

What is down will go up. At the same time you have to be prepared for what is up to go down.

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.

I've never not appeared in front of a live audience for any longer period than a month or two.

You have to create your life. You have to carve it like a sculpture.

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.

I'm always open to the possibility that somebody's got a better idea than I have. It happens with some frequency.

I don't think in terms of God.

If saving money is wrong I don't want to be right!

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.

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.

There's too many people in the world.

I often conduct interviews in my truck.

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.

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.

The good life is one that's artistically made.

Ads need to be little pieces of entertainment.

I believe that when things happen they happen with a purpose.

I didn't want to do the sitcom thing but I didn't know what else to do.

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.'

A stage actor has to be 10% aware of the audience as he's performing.

It's very easy to say no to leaving the house.

And I enjoyed the celebrity and the creativity that was involved in Star Trek.

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.

Exercise? A Jew doesn't exercise.

I've blundered my way through life.

Here's something pompous - you take your day and artistically create it so every moment has an artistic flavor.

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.

Most people including myself keep repeating the same mistakes.

One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.

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.

Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life.

I can't type. Can't do it.

Remember - you can't beam through a force field. So don't try it.

The only subject I know anything about is myself and I don't know that too clearly.

My plan has always been to return to Broadway every 50 years.

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?

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.

I think the acting satisfies the need and desire for approval.

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.

We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions.

I have tinnitus.

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.

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.

When I direct and have to look at filmed scenes of myself I suck.

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.

When I'm interviewing somebody I don't work from prepared questions.

Death is an absolute marvel.

Fate gives you the finger and you accept.

I am private.

I don't know how to deal with being 80.

I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners and that's really hard work.

I'm anxious to make another film.

I have been accused of never saying no.

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.

Every day I realized I would not be a star.

The actor is in the hands of a lot of other people over which he has no control.

If I'm given an opportunity to do something I do it. Or else I fool around with it.

I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.

My site has the whole thing - blogs information video interviews.

I enjoyed reading all the classic authors like Isaac Asimov and Bradbury.

I believe in taking what happens as inevitable.

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.

I'm not out to convince anybody of anything.

I was built for the long run not for the short dash I guess.

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.