Top 187 Quotes & Sayings by Matthew McConaughey - Page 3

The tree is known by his fruit.

They eat, they crap, they sleep, and if they're crying they need to do one of the three and they're having trouble doing it. Real simple.

I like to be directed, but when I'm flying and I'm on fire, I don't want someone coming and getting in my way just because they feel like they need to.

Bringing a baby into the world is something I've always wanted, and now I'm completely ready for my life to start revolving around another human being.

Yes, it is the Big Easy, home of the shortest hangover on the planet, where libation can greet you on Monday morning with the same smile as it did on Saturday night.

My best quality is that I'm a big hearted person. I'm resilient, too. My worst quality is selfishness, although everyone is guilty of that to an extent. Everyone should be, I think - you need to respect yourself.

I hated repeating myself. The last films I've done - not once did I ever have the feeling that I was dialing it in.

The first step that leads to our identity in life is usually not 'I know who I am,' but rather 'I know who I am not.'

We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody.

Don't play an attitude; don't play a guy who's negative. Play a guy who's not trying to sell anybody on anything, he's just saying how it is and if you want to come by what he's thinking, you're welcome. If you do not, then do not.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

Try not to make a straight line crooked.

The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth.

A foolish man... built his house upon the sand.

The law says you cannot touch, but I see a lot of lawbreakers up in this house.

I've been wanting to have my own family since I was young. It just took me a while to find the perfect woman.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

I never go online on my iPhone. Sometimes I'm tempted but I remind myself and the kids - it's a tool. Use it as a tool. You're not the tool. My iPhone, 85% of the time I'm writing down ideas.

Each of the films, whether it’s Magic Mike or Dallas Buyers Club, was a challenge for me. I had to dig deeper. Also, my decision to shake things up came after my first child was born. I had taken nearly two years off and I thought that I would enjoy my time as a dad and wait until something interesting came along.

No computer, no gadget, no trickery. I am an animal, it is a plant. I will beat the weed!

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Man shall not live by bread alone.

I like to customize things. I customized the back of old Lincoln to be my mobile office. I had one of those little laptop desks like in a police car, and I had a cooler in there, so that was my mobile office.

My father – who I know is up there right now, with a big pot of gumbo, he’s got a lemon meringue pie, he’s probably in his underwear, and he’s got a cold can of Miller Lite – and he’s dancing.

I believe in living in the present and making each day count. I don't pay much attention to the past or the future.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?

What I always look for is someone that really knew how to lean up against a bar, get a drink, sit on a barstool. When people are in bars they're relaxed. No real right angles - it's slow moves, it's slow conversations. You can tell a loud joke, but everyone's very relaxed. I never would pick somebody nervous or twitchy. If I found guys with beards, I'd ask them, don't trim the edges, don't go in and manicure yourself up. I always look for people that look like they're comfortable in their own skin, that wouldn't feel like it was the first time they were ever in a bar.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Directors like William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike) and Lee Daniels (The Paperboy) got in touch with me and wanted me to be part of their films. That was a whole new chapter for me. I didn’t chase any of those films and it made me think that I was right to take a chance, say no to the kind of thing I had grown tired of doing, and wait until something good came around. And it did.

One of the great pleasures of going to see a Daniel Day-Lewis film: you haven’t seen him in five years. Where have you been? So, it’s a special event, right? Well, if you want to go see a movie that I’m in, it still may be a special event for you, but, you don’t feel like you don’t know where I’ve been.

The "Dazed" fans are the best! "Dazed" fans never even want an autograph or nothin'.

I love it. It's silly to say that it is a world of false and stupid people. Sure there are witches and swindlers, but you can meet there many creative, talented and generous persons too. Hollywood is a pleasant place, when you are hip to the game and you enjoy it for what it is really.

Cynicism can be funny. But it's the easy way. You'll forget to enjoy anything. I try to make the evolving choice, the forward-moving, life-giving choice. Just keep living, man.

I want to thank God because that's who I look up. He's graced my life with opportunities. He's shown me that it's a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates.

I get it. You have the right to have guns. But look, let's forget that right. Let's forget the pleasure you get safely on your range, because it's in the wrong hands in other places.

Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.

I tell myself I bear witness. The real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.

I got interested in the justice system. If I was, I'd probably be a defense lawyer. I was headed that way, but luckily changed my track to film school.

The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.

I am vain. I think vanity is a good thing. It's done more good things for me than it has not.

I work through life with commas. I don't even know, do you have parentheticals?

It's nice when they notice the deep voice from across the house, and they know it's papa. They know it's Dad.

The hardest thing was going through different stages of weight loss. At the beginning, it was easy to take off the weight with exercise and eating less but then you reach a point where 90 per cent of the weight loss is achieved purely through reducing your calorie intake. My goal was to lose four pounds per week. That worked well for the first few months but then things got tricky.

Traveling is a great love of mine. I love South America and Africa. I'm your ultimate backpacker when I'm away. It's just me and my backpack. It's good for getting away from the industry.

I had a fan who had a fictional relationship with me. She wrote letters to me and then wrote return letters to herself (from me). In her mind, we were married and had two children. Her parents finally uncovered this delusional life she was living and she got help.

A drunk doesn't try to stand up; a drunk tries not to fall down.

Having children has helped me become a better actor because they remind you to play make believe. It's the ease and naturalness of their beings. They just play and it's completely real for them at the time. As an actor, if we do it well, we make you believe.

I keep a diary - one for each film and foreign land I travel to.

The one thing that will be the bane of my existence with my kid will probably be the way he or she is most like me in some ways.

I'm a pretty loyal guy with friends and family, I've had the same friends for a long time.

It's one of the things I love about making films: the places I've got to travel that I would never have gone to before.

I've done films where we don't rehearse and I've done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.

I was raised on, 'You go get a nine-to-five job, earn your pay and work your way up.

The best education I've had in my life is to travel.

I like to be able to wear something that is appropriate for wherever the day takes me: to work, on a hike and then out to dinner. I like to take the formality out of the day’s schedule and be ready for any off-road detour.

If I'm doing something I do like to take it to the limit. I've got a high ceiling. A wide threshold for seeing what those boundaries are for myself. I'm very resilient inside. I find things that I like and do and boy, I do like to stick to them. I'm not necessarily a guy who gets addicted to more of certain things, but if I find something I like to do, I like to stick to it.

I like the 'Alive' part. Now I've made it. Wait until you see the roles I could take after this. You're going to see my gut hanging over, plus 22lbs. It'll be a whole new kind of sexy!

I do believe in God, but I think it's very healthy for a believer to spend time in the pragmatism of agnosticism, and I think God appreciates agnostics trying to make a science of it and going, "I will not believe any further than that." I enjoy that kind of engineering mind. In no way did it ever feel blasphemous to me as a man of faith.