Top 258 Quotes & Sayings by Morgan Freeman - Page 4

I'm not digging tunnels, I'm not building buildings. My work is not hard, my work is refreshing, my work is pleasant. The more the better. Lying around and getting no job is debilitating.

I was told that I was good in my dance movement classes and that I should concentrate on dance because it would enhance my ability to get acting work.

Writing I think, out of what all of us do, writing is the hardest. You're the only who start with nothing except what's up here. You do that. It's really hard I think, acting is not.

I don't know what my favorite film of mine is... But I think the most important film I was in was Glory.

I like working with directors because I'm really opinionated about what things work and may not work, what audiences like and may not like, (not really) but I do have opinions about things. I like to be able to say them and then have them acted on. The director who responds to me like that, always gets my appreciation. I do appreciate it. What I find is the best directors, no matter what kind of name they have, are like that.

Which lady would I like to meet? Um, I don't know that there's anybody left that I didn't meet. But the one that I really wanted to meet died and that was Princess Diana. I really wanted to get to know her. I like her.

Marketing only really works with word of mouth.

Rob [Reiner] is a teddy bear. He's hell delicious. He's a really good director. He's a great soul. In the movie business, I would call him a movie mom. The only person I hold in equal esteem is Clint Eastwood. Now I have worked with a lot of terrific directors, and I don't mean to be putting any of them below their own station, but these two, I relish working with them.

I really wanted to work with Luc Besson. I'm a big fan of his. Did you ever see 'The Professional.' It was very violent. But a fabulous story, a fabulous movie, very well done. So that and two or three other projects of his that I've seen, I just thought if I had a shot to work with him I wanted to do it.

In growing up, I was a child of the movies. I went to the movies every given opportunity, and that's pretty much what has informed a lot of my choices.

If you're going to play a brain surgeon, you just have to learn how to say the words. You don't have to go and learn how to cut open somebody's scalp. I think acting is acting. Being is something else.

...if we get the right kind of energy, there are endless amounts. I think we should be developing every kind of alternative fuel that is available to us. That includes hydrogen to soybeans, from solar to wind. Whatever we can find that is going to help us clean up the environment we should be working really hard on developing.

When I was getting close to being accepted for pilot training, I was allowed to get in a jet airplane. I sat there looking at all those switches and dials and I got the distinct feeling that I was sitting in the nose of bomb. I realized my fantasies of flying and fighting were just that - fantasies.

I'm not sure that my upbringing has in itself informed my acting choices.

In my career? Me. I'm the boss. I'm the end all and be all. I'm the alpha and omega in that.

I never think about awards or anything like that when I do a job. I was first named a best actor when I was 12 years old and it doesn't really mean anything when you get down to it, because there is no best. I don't get all that involved. My chest puffs up as much as I can puff it up but I am not trying to be better than the person I am acting with. I am trying to be at least as good. That's how it works.

What do I want to do? Acting wise? Well, there's a western that I want to do. There's a lot of producing that I want to do, projects that I have stacked up that are in my office that I'd like to get done.

I'm easy going for the most part but sometimes in the morning if I didn't sleep well I can be kind of grumpy. But my grumpiness doesn't have that much to do with my dissatisfaction with my station in life.

I want to be up there, being lauded and applauded and given all these and on the red carpet, waving at the hordes of people.

Even through my good-looking youth, I wasn't called on for any romantic parts, which is okay. What I was called on to do, I enjoyed doing. The funny thing about life is that if you live long enough, I think, you'll get every wish you ever had. It'll all come true.

I am impatient with directors who don't know what they want, and the way you don't know what they want is because they want to do one more. "Let's do one more." So, "What for?" I guarantee you there's not going to be a change.

No one is really a method actor, everyone has their way of going about it, preparing for it, but method is preparation, it's what you do to prepare. So my method is to read the script. Some actors' method is to read the script a hundred times and in the doing of it, to immerse themselves in as much of the reality as possible. Me, I believe strictly in acting. If I am out of breath, I'm out of breath. I ain't running nowhere.

I've always been really hot on westerns. All my life growing up, cowboy, cowboy, cowboy.

Someone's always going to come down on the side of the fence.

It's seldom that you get to work with one director more than once. I've worked with Clint Eastwood three times, but that's the only one that's happened with, simply because I adore his work.

The main thing about awards in movies is that they can serve as an economic surge for the film. If you're movie gets nominated for any award it does it a big favour. People might go and see it again... they won't give up on it.

Our situation, with global warming and air quality and all of that, has gotten to be catastrophic.

I'm not a comedian. I don't make things funny if they're not funny. I don't invent funny stuff.

I don't need any more press. I get enough when I work, but environmental causes is one place where you can get me to open my mouth. And put my foot in it if necessary. I think the only thing I do that gives me any bragging rights in terms of energy conservation is sailing. Just using wind power.

Someone's going to put the clothes on you, and part of being an actor is wearing costumes. Costumes tell you an awful lot about who you are, so you just, it's nothing.

I always wanted to be a fireman, a cop, an Indian chief, a doctor, a lawyer. I always wanted to be all these things, so I am drawn to these kinds of characters.

I was always ambitious. I always wanted to be more than I was....I always wanted to be a movie actor.

I'm also very fond of a light business jet, so I'd like to get it before it's too late.

I've just never been the kind of actor that things have stayed with. I've never needed to carry a character off stage.

People don't want to hang around someone that you don't know how they're going to react to anything you do or say.

If your income on films or whatever you're producing using film drops below a certain level, then you don't have enough money to stay in business. People like to say that this is all just about making money, but if you don't make money, you don't make anything.

A scientist sounds like a scientist because the things that come out of their mouth don't stumble, that's all. If they [said], "And the, um, a microwave, uh," you know, then you don't sound right, but if you can just get it out without stumbling then you're going to sound fine.

I have never acted he has never been cast in a romantic lead or has been cast opposite a female love interest in any movie he starred in.

I like producing but acting is the quintessential me, and I'm probably better at that than I am at anything. My heart has always been in the movies.

I just wanted to be an actor. It's better to be well-rounded.

But I was 22 before I took my first dance class. I had never been athletic, so I was very stiff; I still am. I think what I got mostly from dance was carriage.

I would never complain that Hollywood is racist when I'm one of the people touted as a welcome entity there.

I understand that when Gary Oldman was in that suit [Batman], sweat would just drip off of him where they had to have holes in the gloves or something.

Race seems to me to be less and less a subject worth discussing.

Costume is always an asset. Normal costume you have a lot to say about - if you're wearing suits or ties, and what color you want, and how it's going to be cut, and stuff like that, and whether or not you're going to wear a hat, and blah, blah, blah. But, when you're wearing a special costume, and of course, costume is probably the second ingredient in character, script being first, I always find that the costume does a lot to cement your character, to put it firmly in mind.

I have to deal with being famous. Sometimes I have to tell people I don't do autographs, thank you very much. At certain places, I refuse to have my photograph taken.

You do a movie. However long it lasts, it begins and it ends in a relatively short period of time. In a given period of time, let's say a year, you can have three, four, or five different experiences which is exciting.

I'm not one who can write out a speech and remember all the names of the people that you need to thank because you need to thank all of those people.

I think that we did a really good thing when we elected Barack Obama. I read his books. He is absolutely and totally qualified for the job. He's proven himself to be not only qualified for the job, but very good at it. The things that he's managed to get accomplished in the face of so much push-back is amazing, and I think - this is Morgan Freeman's personal thought - we're going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't reelect him, because the people on the other side of the fence scare me.

Insanity is coasting through life.

I don't have to do anything. The character is shaped on the page.

When I was growing up, I didn't see me in the movies except in certain lesser roles. If it wasn't funny, I wasn't there. Then Sidney Poitier came along, and he wasn't funny. He was just good. There's me. So that was my pattern.

There are things that I would like to do, but I make a big distinction between liking to do something and wanting to do something. If there's something that I want to do I've done it. If there's something that comes up that I want to do I will do it.

If you sat down and you wrote a script, you may write something that's way beyond what you've ever seen me do, but if you thought of me to do it, I would be flattered to be asked to do something other than be wise.

I was a B student in math, simply because my teachers liked me, as an actor.

Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single ‘victim’ of Columbine?

Working on stage is really a great voice developer.

I know American football. I know a little bit about soccer. I know baseball, I know basketball. But, rugby is a foreign language.

I don't think you're going to get nominated every time you jump out of the box.

I can remember when I first got to los Angeles . I didn't have a car, I didn't have any money. I was walking the streets, you know, trying to get from place to place on foot almost. Sometimes, you know, you say, how am I ever going to get from here to there? There are a lot of people still having that dream and not being able to get there. So you never know. The idea is to keep on tap dancing, though.