Either you're growing or you're decaying; there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that one must always strive for growth, as stagnation leads to decline.
Alan Arkin's quote emphasizes the necessity of continual personal growth and development. It warns that remaining stagnant in life will inevitably lead to decay or deterioration, whether in personal skills, relationships, or overall well-being. Therefore, one should always seek to improve and evolve, as there is no neutral position; one is either advancing or regressing.
In practice
This quote would be suitable for a personal development seminar to inspire attendees.
I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did
If you want to be an actor and you love acting, you can do it whether you're doing something else or not. You can be connected with community theater or make your own little movies. But if you want to be a movie star, you've got a tough road ahead of you.
Everybody's career has ups and downs. I like to take chances; I don't like to stand still. And I don't give a damn what the market is interested in; I want to try things.
I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.
I love working if it's with people who are capable of having a good time. People with a little bit of enjoyment of what they do. If it's enormous pressure, and people feel that their lives are at stake, then it's agony. So I try to pick projects where I feel like I'm going to avoid those traps.
Discovery is the privilege of the child: the child who has no fear of being once again wrong, of looking like an idiot, of not being serious, of not doing things like everyone else.
Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.
I have need of angels. Enough hell has swallowed me for too many years. But finally understand this--I have burned up one hundred thousand human lives already, from the strength of my pain.
A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.
Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
People only see what they are prepared to see.
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