Quotes from Evgeny Leonov
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I compiled a selection of quotes from actor Yevgeny Leonov (1926 - 1994).
They are dominated by sadness and contemplation. Such a comic actor.
Quotes are grouped by topic: about yourself, life ethics, art, life, silence, love, goodness and happiness, politics, people, fear, loneliness.
About Me
If I go somewhere, I don't get bored because I talk to myself. On the train, someone reads a book, someone reads something, and I stare out the window and start thinking about something, about my life.
I'm surprised at people who remember facts. I remember the sensations.
There is also suspicion in me: if I did not meet an open smile, then I already believed that they were treating me badly, although now I know that a smile does not mean anything.
I work and I will fall and rise, and make mistakes, and suffer, as I rejoiced, and suffered, and worried always...
Work is torture for me. I can't help but feel like I don't know anything. And over the years, playing only becomes more difficult. You doubt more and more. In yourself. In your skill. In professionalism.
I have always loved and love playing with young actors.
I used to get upset when I heard fables about myself, I started to explain, but now I don’t explain, but some kind of pain arises. I never express this out loud, but insults stir my heart and hurt. I get lost when I am attacked by some force against which I can do nothing. And yet, believe me, a few days pass, and I forget the insult, and life begins in a new way.
About life ethics
For some, God is in heaven, and for others, in their own hearts. And this God in the heart does not allow you to fall below a certain human level... He will not allow you to kick a dog, offend an old man, or treat your parents badly.
A person does not help a person out of gratitude, but simply because he is imbued with sympathy and shows concern for the fate of another person. It's so natural. If you still cannot help anyone today, at least know how to cultivate and preserve gratitude in your soul for those who help you. This is not at all in order to return a person’s moral debt: “You - to me, I - to you,” this sad impression is made. I believe that a noble person will want to help another when he can, for gratitude makes him sensitive to other people's worries and troubles.
Trust in life is also the ability not to become embittered, although there are many around who can say or hurt.
It’s only important to understand that the bad is bad, it didn’t work out, then you can move on, and something will definitely work out.
Resentment should not be accumulated at all. Not much wealth, as they say.
Don’t be surprised that you want to philosophize, this begins with everyone someday. And most often - when something new comes into life that cannot be brought under the bar of already established ideas.
About art
What is terrible in art is complacency, which rejects everything.
In art it’s like this: everything depends on the view, and views are rarely global, stable, and today, for the most part, the momentary reigns in the theater. Now many theaters are stage. They jump, sing, dance. Theater institutes are no longer concerned with personal development. And personality in art means a lot. If theater is based on the individual, then the theater has global views, views on art, and content. If the theater does not rest on the individual, but only for today, then only today is in the theater, and the theater does not see the world and itself in tragic nakedness and simplicity.
The ease scares me, it scares me not because I like it when everyone is exhausted from work, but here, no matter what you do, there is general delight, everyone expects this from you. It’s frightening because I have discovered or discovered during my life in art one truth: everything that is born without great mental investment turns out to be nonsense.
I love comedy for its democracy, for the desire and opportunity to heal the vices of society and man; for the fact that comedy instills in a person faith in a moral ideal, for by ridiculing evil, we discover in ourselves the power to overcome it.
Theater is not cinema, not pop music, not television. Theater is not a story about love, it is love itself. And that means there are two of you: you and the viewer.
By the way, quotes about art
About life
Every time life confronts us with some surprises, to which you do not always react as you would have decided if you had thought in advance.
And to know life, you have to live. Don’t protect yourself from conflicts between yourself and others, don’t be afraid of danger, risk, don’t look for an easier way, don’t run away from responsibility, don’t think that your house is on the edge and that the winds of time won’t touch you.
Some people live to achieve a goal, but what happens when the day comes and the goal is achieved? Can you imagine that the goal will be achieved? And then what? Maybe those who believe that the goal is life are right, and life is the most precious thing, and everything that serves life is moral.
They say: now is a different time. Another God. Different morality. Another Truth. But the fact of the matter is that there is no Other God. And there is no other morality. And another Truth. You can't trample everything. Especially in art.
By the way, quotes about life
About silence
Silence is a special state of the world and the human soul. It seems to me that we feel like a part of nature, a drop of the ocean in silence. Without silence, beauty cannot be understood.
The silence that arises in me, in you, in us, when you don’t hear any noise, you sit, think, immerse yourself in yourself - this is internal silence, it is not connected with the noise on the street, it is in yourself. Only very rare, very developed people are able to organize such silence. But for this, you also need to first learn to hear, see silence, feel.
When you go out into the field and the wind ruffles the ears of wheat, it seems that the world has plunged into silence, all other sounds have disappeared, and this song of the wind specially caresses your ear so that you look back and understand how quiet it is all around. Or in the forest a bird will fly from tree to tree, a leaf will crunch under your foot, and you will hear how quiet, how solemnly calm the forest is. And the sea wave beats rhythmically, with a musical score, against the shore, so that a person can hear the silence. Nature has come up with many amazing things to help us hear and love silence.
If a person’s soul is calm, he hears the silence and rejoices, and if there is excitement in him, then the silence only strengthens it. My anxiety dissipated in front of me in the chair: come on, he says, let’s worry together, why hide here, you won’t get away from it.
About love
Do you want to convince someone that you are in love? But think about it, is it really normal to want to show your love? It seems to me that you need to be quieter, more careful, it’s better not to let anyone know, because love is your spiritual secret.
You know what kind of wealth this is - love. True, some people think that my love is somehow different and that it causes only harm.
All my life it seemed to me that I didn’t receive enough love. It seemed to me that my mother loved my brother more than me, it seemed to me that Wanda and you loved me little. I have always given more than I received in return. And it didn’t upset me, no, but it even made me cry.
By the way, quotes about love
About goodness and happiness
Actually, I think there are no people who are completely incapable of goodness. It happens that a person has become bitter and it seems to him that there is no room for kindness in his soul, but this is a mistake, this is temporary: without doing good deeds, a person feels uncomfortable in this world.
Sometimes just one kind word is enough to feel inspired. And it is very important that this word be spoken during a person’s lifetime.
Happiness is living without fear. Without expectation and anticipation of difficulties and misfortunes.
By the way, quotes about goodness
About politics
For some reason, it seems to me personally that politics itself is a pure matter. But about the people who make it, we need to talk about it. I am sighted and I see: everything revolves around the careers of these people. This is how it all reads... I'm just an actor. But I see it all. And the faces of the deputy corps, and the level of their conversation... I’m not even talking about fights and swearing and the seizure of apartments. Everything is somehow not human.
Many people don’t understand this, but the main thing is that we are alive. We are living. And somewhere there are normal, smart people who mind their own business and don’t sort things out, like our authorities. These people care about everyone's well-being. There are - there must be! - people who know what to do. We need to give them time. It doesn’t happen that everyone at the top is educated and smart. So they fight. Yes, if these fights were of any benefit to people, let them kill each other! But this is not happening.
By the way, quotes about politics
About people
Through my entire life, like through the life of every person, so many faces and people have passed. I ran into some of them more closely, and some of them I just rode in the car with from filming. But every person, if you look into his eyes, is a whole world. Be receptive to these worlds. This is where art begins.
Is there a person in your life in front of whom you are not afraid to be small, stupid, unarmed, in all the nakedness of your revelation? This person is your protection.
By the way, quotes about people
About fear
Fear is not weakness. Now, if fear forces you to retreat, if you save your strength and as a result become smaller, this is weakness.
What does it mean to retreat? This is when a person does not use his powers until the last.
About loneliness
Loneliness is a bitter feeling, but sometimes it is useful to look into your soul, and once you look into yourself, you find something there.
When I say loneliness, I mean that I do something, but they don’t understand me, then I’m lonely.
By the way, quotes about loneliness
About miscellaneous
The heart stops not only when you get hit and you don’t respond, the heart stops when you suddenly feel that you can do something.
There are cities in which you do not feel like a stranger, even though you have set foot on their square for the first time. And I don’t know how this is explained. On the street I hear Georgian speech, a slightly sad Georgian melody comes from the loudspeaker, in the subway I don’t immediately find signs in Russian, but I don’t feel separate, detached, alone. Everything around is special, new, beautiful, but it belongs to everyone who sees and understands this beauty. However, it’s strange, now I thought, this is a general truth: both in art and in life, everything beautiful belongs to those who are able to see and feel.
Quotes from Leonov's film roles
Steal, drink - go to prison, steal, drink - go to prison! Romance!
I'll tear your mouth and gouge out your blinkers! You will work for the rest of your life on medicine!
Sausage, sausage, radish, Nebuchadnezzar! Rooster of Hamburg!
Happiness is when you want to go to work in the morning and want to go home in the evening.
A glass of vodka, an executioner and a block! Vodka for me, the rest for him.
All of us monsters look the same.
My working day is not standardized. There is no order. This makes the character nervous and difficult for others. Ok, I'm quiet. I am silent when I need to speak. When I don't have to, I talk nonsense.
Based on quotes from Evgeny Leonov, one gets the feeling that life was not easy for him. But how much he managed to do in cinema and theater!
Quotes about Evgeny Leonov
- M. Boyarsky: Despite his short stature, Leonov looked down on his interlocutors. He did not like familiarity and led an almost reclusive life. He was always alone. He was taken from the set alone by car to a country holiday home, where he spent the night. And in the morning they brought us straight to the set.
- A. Goncharov: Evgeny Leonov was a great Russian comedian. Do you know what a Russian comedian is? This is a must, without fail - also a tragedian, there must be a romantic tear in it, the intonation of a tragedy must sound.
- E. Shanina: Evgeny Pavlovich looked like a simpleton, but he was an incredibly well-read and educated person. And he never flaunted this; on the contrary, he made fun of the attempts of “artists” to speculate on lofty matters. Only with close friends, among whom were many people from different theaters, did he enthusiastically talk about what was interesting to him - about theater, art, about his great teachers - Tarkhanov, Yanshin.
Next, you can move on to other collections of quotes:
- Quotes from Ranevskaya
- Quotes from Zhvanetsky
- Quotes from Vysotsky
- Stanislavsky Quotes
- Chekhov Quotes
- Quotes from Celentano
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Quotes from Leonov's film roles
Gentlemen of Fortune (1972)
I'll tear your mouth and gouge out your blinkers! You will work for the rest of your life on medicine! Sausage, sausage, radish, Nebuchadnezzar! Rooster of Hamburg! Steal, drink - go to prison, steal, drink - go to prison! Romance! I am an angry and terrible gray wolf, I know a lot about piglets!
Afonya (1975)
Afonya, don’t you know what the UN decided about Honduras? Who is he"? We live like in a cave, in complete isolation. — Which planet would you choose? -Where is the free beer, and you? — And I want there to be no wars, no hotbeds of tension.
Long, Long Case (1976)
My working day is not standardized. There is no order. This makes the character nervous and difficult for others. Ok, I'm quiet. I am silent when I need to speak. When I don't have to, I talk nonsense.
An Ordinary Miracle (1978)
A glass of vodka, an executioner and a block! Vodka for me, the rest for him.
Autumn Marathon (1979)
- We need to remove the papers from the table... let's bury them. — But in Denmark, they throw away such jackets? - No, they don’t throw it away, it’s pure cotton, it’s expensive! - But they threw it away, the sleeve slightly tore, and they threw it away!
Kin-Dza-Dza! (1986)
— Are Patsaks and Chatlans a nationality? - No. — Biological factor? - No. — Persons from other planets? - No. - Then how are they different from each other? —Are you colorblind, Violinist? Can't tell green from orange? Tourist... - Uncle Vova. The DAC must be turned, the DAC. - On the! Do it yourself! - I can’t, I’m a Chatlanian. - Get out of here!!! How to advise, everyone is chatlan, but how to work, so... Maimunovirishvilo! On the river, on the river, on that bank, ku Marusenka white yyyy!.. Hey! Patsak! Anyway, you’ll kick off your hooves now. Tell the truth at least once in your life. Why didn’t you move with that goat when you could? What did you want? Raspberry pants? Swimming pool PJ? Tell what?
- ↑ 1,01,11,2 Leonov E.P. Zigzag of luck: Letters to his son. Memories of the actor. - M.: AST, 2010. - 304 p. (3 letters to eugene-leonov.ru)
- ↑ 2,02,12,2 Carriers, Valery. “I didn’t become Leonov, I was born Leonov” // Izvestia. 2006. August 31.
- ↑ 3,03,13,23,3 Eroshok Z. “He won’t play. But living is a must” (last interview, 1993) // Novaya Gazeta. 2004. February 2, no. 7.
- A. A. Goncharov. Great comedian // Ismailova N. Kh. Evgeniy Leonov: Life and roles. - M.: Art, 1979.
