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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

http://www.adherents.com/people/pq/Anthony_Quinn.html

Anthony Quinn and Religion

(excerpt)

A close of Quinn's named Evie introduced him to a number of
philosophers/religious writers which he had heretofore been unfamiliar
with, as he had mostly only learned about more religion in a Catholic and
Foursquare Gospel context. Anthony Quinn, The Original Sin: A
Self-Portrait, pages 184-186:

In five minutes I was drunk and started crying... I lost control. "Those
bastards... they think they're better than me just because they've read a
lot of books... What the hell do they know about painters? I could be
Michelangelo if I wanted to. I feel as much as Shakespeare way down
inside of me. Have they ever read the Bible? I can quote the Bible."

I went into a long recitation of Ecclesiastes. I must have talked for an
hour, saying things I didn't even know existed in me...

[The next day, Evie] talked about how superficial mere knowledge was; it
was what you did with it that counted... She was sure that once I had
sufficient knowledge I would put it to good use...

"All right, Tony, let's start. What do you like to read?"

"The only thing I know about is religion."

"Well, that's the most important subject of all, isn't it -- at the basis of
everything. So, maybe we'll start with some metaphysics. There's a
philosopher I love very much, his name is Santayana. Why don't we start
by reading Santayana?"

...That night I started reading Santayana, but he was too theoretical for
me, not practical enough.

"Well then," she said, "we'll read Schopenhauer. He is certainly practical."
I liked Schopenhauer. His ideas fitted in with my background somehow. I
liked his patriarchal attitude, and the clear line of definition between man
and women. And he said life was precious; you shouldn't waste time; you
should spend every minute of your waking day advancing yourself.

Sylvia insisted that whenever I found an author I admired I must live as
he preached for a week, or a month--as long as I could apply his thoughts
to my life. And I did, with Schopenhauer, then Nietzsche, with Thoreau,
and then on to Emerson. I suddenly found myself avariciously devouring
philosophy and literature... I read Fielding and Smollett, Baudelaire and
Balzac, Dante and D'Annunzio. I read Ford Maddox Ford, Sinclair Lewis,
Scott Fitzgerald, Wolfe, Hemingway. . . .

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