Acceptance Speech Quotes

If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.

During her Oscar acceptance speech, Patricia Arquette called for equal pay for women. Then Oprah stood up and said, 'She's right, I can't live like this. I can't take another second of this living hell.'

Arnold Schwarzenegger is gonna be the new governor of California. During his acceptance speech Arnold said 'I will not let you down.' Unfortunately, at the time Arnold was holding a woman over his head and looking up her dress.

I think at some point every actor has practiced their acceptance speech while they're having a shower. It's fun.

The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things. [from her Newberry Award acceptance speech]

On many young actors that don't give their parents proper credit: I'm still waiting for some actor to win, say, an Oscar... and deliver the following acceptance speech: I would like to thank my parents, first of all, for letting me live.

Rappers should be forced to rhyme in their acceptance speeches.

This Thursday, Barack Obama is gonna give his acceptance speech, and reportedly it's going to include performances by Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Yeah. And they say Obama's not black enough!

I find myself having rehearsal chats, in my head, for conversations I need to have. Sometimes they are arguments, things I need to get off my chest, award acceptance speeches. Ultimately, it clears my mind, helps me focus my thoughts, and sometimes alleviates the need for the real conversation.

[Albert] Camus writes his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in thanks to his teacher.

People are falling all over themselves to send you free shoes and free cufflinks and colonic irrigations for two. Nobody ever offers you a free acceptance speech. There just seems to be a gap in the market. I would love to be able to pull out a speech by Dolce & Gabbana.

There's another totally fraudulent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore hadn't done anything but make a movie that itself was filled with misrepresentations about the amount of ice the poor polar bears have to live on, doctored photos. He said in his acceptance speech in 2007, getting a Nobel Peace Prize, that the North Pole would be ice free by 2013. Today the truth is, there is a record amount of arctic ice for this time of year. He couldn't have been more wrong.

Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.

This sounds crazy, but my goal is to be nominated for an Oscar. I was the kid who was practicing my acceptance speech when I was ten.

Forgive me if what has seemed little to you, to me is all.

She still talks to me now, only now she talks to me in my dreams. And I can't wait to go to sleep tonight because we have a lot to talk about. I love you.

Right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you're also writing your Oscar acceptance speech.

Unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

I don't have a sense of entitlement or that I deserve this. You'd be surprised at the lack of competition between nominees - I think a lot of it's imposed from the outside. Can I have my champagne now?

This is one night I wish I smoked and drank.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

I won and I get to scream and jump a little. But I got to go back to work tomorrow.

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

A nap is not to be confused with sleeping. We sleep to recharge our bodies. We nap to care for our souls. When we nap, we are resting our eyes while our imaginations soar. Getting ready for the next round. Sorting, sifting, separating the profound from the profane, the possible from the improbable. Rehearsing our acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, our surprise on receiving the MacArthur genius award. This requires a prone position. If we're lucky, we might drift off, but we won't drift far. Just far enough to ransom our creativity from chaos.

God bless that potential that we all have for making anything possible if we think we deserve it. I deserve this.

Am I allowed to say I really wanted this? This is fantastic.

I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano's class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space.

Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?

You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?

When they called my name, I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, 'Oh no. Come on... Her, again?' You know. But, whatever.

This moment is so much bigger than me. It's for every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.

I can't deny the fact that you like me! You like me!

I, uh...I have a television, so I'm going to spend some time here to tell you some things. [To orchestra conductor:] And, and...and sir, you're doing a great job, but you're so quick with that stick, so why don't you sit. 'Cause I may never be here again.'

Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, 'Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.'

There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't. You just do the best you can.

Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to Hollywood scene in 1928. So did I. We're both a little weather-beaten, but we're still here and plan to be around for a whole lot longer.

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.