Top 180 William Shatner Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “The truth can’t be hidden for long.”

— William Shatner

2. “You might as well aim high. Why shoot yourself in the foot when you can shoot yourself in the head?”

— William Shatner

3. “If saving money is wrong, I don’t want to be right!”

— William Shatner

4. “You have to create your life. You have to carve it, like a sculpture.”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner

6. “Any success I have had began by my showing up on time, being prepared, and doing the best possible job.”

— William Shatner

7. “I’ve got rock ‘n’ roll in my blood.”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner

9. “I think you die the way you live.”

— William Shatner

10. “Your cadence is your music.”

— William Shatner

11. “Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life.”

— William Shatner

12. “So bitcoin is cyber snob currency...”

— William Shatner

13. “We’re all embers from the same fire. Our ember winks out, we’re ashes, we go back to the fire.”

— William Shatner

14. “Pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re the things that we carry with us, they’re the things that make us what we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away, I need my pain!”

— William Shatner

15. “Divorce is probably as painful as death.”

— William Shatner

16. “I’m surfing the giant life wave.”

— William Shatner

17. “The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling.”

— William Shatner

18. “Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes.”

— William Shatner

19. “I did a movie in Esperanto.”

— William Shatner

20. “What does God need with a starship?”

— William Shatner

21. “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.”

— William Shatner

22. “I love the concept of togetherness and the entwinement of marriage.”

— William Shatner

23. “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.”

— William Shatner

24. “I’ve never been without a dog. I’ve made trips across the country with a dog. I’ve been in that angst of loneliness, where you’re really alone in the universe, except for the dog.”

— William Shatner

25. “I love the musicality of words.”

— William Shatner

26. “I’ve discovered that the more freedom I have to be creative, the more creative I become.”

— William Shatner

27. “I’m not out to convince anybody of anything.”

— William Shatner

28. “If we can clean up our world, I’ll bet you we can achieve warp drive.”

— William Shatner

29. “I am curious about many things, and find the world around me, and the people and objects and things in it, equally fascinating. There is a great deal of that awe and wonder in me.”

— William Shatner

30. “Stop and smell the garlic! That’s all you have to do.”

— William Shatner

31. “Fate gives you the finger and you accept.”

— William Shatner

32. “I was built for the long run, not for the short dash, I guess.”

— William Shatner

33. “A true pilot must of necessity pay attention to the seasons, the heavens, the stars, the winds, and everything proper to the craft if he is really to rule a ship.”

— William Shatner

34. “Success should always be just beyond your grasp.”

— William Shatner

35. “Conquest is easy. Control is not.”

— William Shatner

36. “A sense of the unknown has always lured mankind and the greatest of the unknowns of today is outer space. The terrors, the joys and the sense of accomplishment are epitomized in the space program.”

— William Shatner

37. “Memories were the markers of the journey through life. It was necessary to know where you had come from. Only then could you know where you were going.”

— William Shatner

38. “Has it ever occurred to you that how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life?”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner

40. “My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.”

— William Shatner

41. “I never watched ‘Star Trek.’”

— William Shatner

42. “I believe that when things happen, they happen with a purpose.”

— William Shatner

43. “Avatar is a watershed movie. We’ll always refer to Lawrence of Arabia in the same way. We’ll always look at Avatar and say, “That’s about as good as it gets.” It’s an enormous advance, in every way, shape and form, of movie making.”

— William Shatner

44. “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.”

— William Shatner

45. “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?”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner

47. “I have been accused of never saying no.”

— William Shatner

48. “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.”

— William Shatner

49. “There was nothing lonelier than a man with a million friends.”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner