Top 180 William Shatner Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “You need to be silly to be funny.”

— William Shatner

102. “I don’t want people to know me. I want them to believe my version.”

— William Shatner

103. “You have to continuously fail. You fail at something, then you get over it, then you fail some more. And after you fail, there’s always something new there. And that something new can be really interesting.”

— William Shatner

104. “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.”

— William Shatner

105. “I didn’t want to do the sitcom thing, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

— William Shatner

106. “A series is filled with compromises.”

— William Shatner

107. “Never buy anything that eats while you sleep.”

— William Shatner

108. “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.”

— William Shatner

109. “I’m so not ready to die. It petrifies me. I go alone. I go to a place I don’t know. It might be painful. It might be the end. My thought is that it is the end. I become nameless, and I spent a lifetime being known.”

— William Shatner

110. “We’re all embers from the same fire. Our ember winks out, we’re ashes, we go back to the fire. I like that image. There has to be a unifying theory. I think there is a continuity of some kind, that my love for my wife will go on past the death of my body. Nature is perfect.”

— William Shatner

111. “Remember – you can’t beam through a force field. So, don’t try it.”

— William Shatner

112. “There were many times when I kept silent about being Jewish as I got older, when Jewish jokes were told.”

— William Shatner

113. “My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!”

— William Shatner

114. “If there’s anything I’m not pompous about, it’s myself or my work. But I seem to be able to play it.”

— William Shatner

115. “I’m looking for the perfect paintball movie.”

— William Shatner

116. “Acting is easier – writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious.”

— William Shatner

117. “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.”

— William Shatner

118. “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.”

— William Shatner

119. “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.”

— William Shatner

120. “I’ve come to the conclusion that athletes, when they say they miss the crowd, are not missing the sound of the crowd. What they’re missing is the feeling inside that makes the crowd roar. It’s not the roar of the crowd, it’s the silence inside.”

— William Shatner

121. “A pretty girl is certainly comparable to a good horse.”

— William Shatner

122. “Somewhere in university, I realized that I hadn’t been to classes in months, and I’d get tired to the point of narcolepsy doing anything other than some form of performing, directing, writing, or acting.”

— William Shatner

123. “The name Shatner is Austrian and partly Germanic, and there’s Germanic reticence and silence perhaps, but there is passion underneath.”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner

125. “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.’”

— William Shatner

126. “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.”

— William Shatner

127. “I think the acting satisfies the need and desire for approval.”

— William Shatner

128. “Getting that audience approval is always a question mark, and it’s always that flag that flutters in front of you.”

— William Shatner

129. “I love to go to a movie, get a Diet Coke and a barrel of popcorn, and sit there with my kids and watch a film.”

— William Shatner

130. “I had a major in business, and I graduated with a business degree, but I was perhaps the worst student to graduate from that program.”

— William Shatner

131. “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.”

— William Shatner

132. “When I was out for the Christmas Holidays in school, I would go skiing up to the mountains and there they had Santa on a sled. Pulled by horses and other reindeer, it was a very, very picturesque time and that struck me very emphatically then and has remained with me all this time.”

— William Shatner

133. “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.”

— William Shatner

134. “I’m interested in man’s march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with the vomit hovering over me.”

— William Shatner

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

— William Shatner

136. “I often conduct interviews in my truck.”

— William Shatner

137. “I always thought that the spine of a character was awe and wonder.”

— William Shatner

138. “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.”

— William Shatner

139. “Here’s something pompous – you take your day and artistically create it, so every moment has an artistic flavor.”

— William Shatner

140. “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.”

— William Shatner

141. “Everybody has their 15 minutes, and those 15 minutes should be spent in a private limo and a private plane. It’s the ultimate.”

— William Shatner

142. “I love cameras but I find myself reluctantly taking pictures because what’s past is past.”

— William Shatner

143. “I got on a horse when I was about 12 years of age, and started galloping around. my mother came up said “where did you learn to ride a horse?” I said “this is the first time I’ve ever been on a horse” I just knew, I just felt the horse.”

— William Shatner

144. “I have had mystical experiences with horses. I felt they were communicating with me in horse communication.”

— William Shatner

145. “My understanding is, the fans are so ravenous in Canada, they gnaw on the stars.”

— William Shatner

146. “I want to discover a truth for myself that is really true. Whether it’s a piece of scientific knowledge, or a philosophical truth.”

— William Shatner

147. “What part of me was born with the courage to stand in front of strangers and risk rejection?”

— William Shatner

148. “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.”

— William Shatner

149. “I love living in Los Angeles.”

— William Shatner

150. “Writing an acceptance speech gives you the expectation of winning, and you are therefore devastated or hurt if you didn’t win.”

— William Shatner