Top 157 Quotes & Sayings by Philip Seymour Hoffman - Page 2

In a film there a lot of people scheduling, you know.

There's nothing risky in talking about your personal life. People do it all the time.

I had a father who was a traveling salesman.

I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.

People used to be funny about approaching me, but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be.

When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.

I try not to plan that too much.

You can look at anything as a cult. Churches are cults in their own way.

I've grown to really love musicals, you know?

It's hard for anybody who works a lot and has children. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I do understand what it is to not want to commit to someone, knowing that might bring pain or commit to a life that has to do with being responsible to people other than myself. These things, I think, are normal things.

You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting.

My soul is in good shape.

It's really hard to watch things and then not think about anything afterwards.

I got into plays in high school then I ended up going to college for it.

People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to.

I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you've got.

Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that.

I think you ultimately have to love who you're playing. You have to have that kind of feeling. You have to have passion for the person.

I got sober when I was 22 years old.

No one wants to be pretentious about what they do or take it seriously, because that is just weird.

Good work is the only thing that would make me feel jealous or envious.

Ultimately what I'll do next is up in the air for me.

Plays never feel like the right thing to do at the time.

I've seen a lot of friends who have a lot of great projects, whether it's a script or a play or whatever, and it is a great project and they have great people involved, and they can't make it.

Why you do something is always kind of a mystery to me.

My mum's name is Marilyn O'Connor. She's here tonight and I would like if you see her for you to congratulate her because she brought up four kids alone and she deserves congratulations for that.

There is no pleasure that I haven't actually made myself sick on.

I've been reading a bunch of stuff lately - like Joseph Campbell - that has made me realize that people in our cultural, especially in the liberal community, often go in search of a foe. It's like we always need a hill to climb up or something to push against, or we feel as if we're not working constructively in the world.

I don't want to repeat myself. I'm not going to play a guy like Allen in Happiness again any time soon because I did that and I don't want to tarnish or dilute that film by doing it again, maybe less well.

I always thought I'd be a New York theater actor, riding my bicycle to rehearsal. That was all I ever wanted.

You must be really bad, because it is a puzzle. Creating anything is hard. It’s a cliché thing to say, but every time you start a job, you just don’t know anything. I mean, I can break something down, but ultimately I don’t know anything when I start work on a new movie. You start stabbing out, and you make a mistake, and it’s not right, and then you try again and again. The key is you have to commit. And that’s hard because you have to find what it is you are committing to.

I would definitely say pleasure is not happiness. Because I think I kill pleasure. Like I take too much of it in, and therefore make it un-pleasurable, like too much coffee, and you're miserable.

Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live.

I'm probably more personal when I'm acting than at any other time. More open, more direct. Because it allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, you know? Because it's make-believe.

I think Magnolia is one of the best films I've ever seen and I can say that straight and out and anybody that disagrees with me I'll fight you to the death. I just think it is one of the greatest films I've ever been in and ever seen.

For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, that's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great - well, that's absolutely torturous.

Sometimes it's hard to say no. Ultimately, if you stick to your guns, you have the career that you want. Don't get me wrong. I love a good payday and I'll do films for fun. But ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it.

Actors are responsible to the people we play. I don't label or judge. I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can.

I think you gotta have an honesty and a humility about human nature and that it's not about you at the end of the day.

Something that could bring you wealth and fame could also be your end, your undoing.

Don't let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they're bored and step on you when they're done. Be like drugs, let them die for you.

Ultimately, I think writing is a mixture of craft, inspiration, and being incredibly, courageously explorative with yourself - and being brutally honest, too.

A lot of people describe me as chubby, which seems so easy, so first-choice. Or stocky. Fair-skinned. Tow-headed. There are so many other choices. How about dense? I mean, I'm a thick kind of guy. But I'm never described in attractive ways. I'm waiting for somebody to say I'm at least cute. But nobody has.

To have that concentration to act well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that’s a thing people don’t understand. It is that exhausting. If you’re doing it well, if you’re concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotional and imagination and emotional life are all in tune, concentrated and working together in that role, that is just like lugging weights upstairs with your head... And I don’t think that should get any easier.

My favorite thing about acting is being alone and going through the scripts and working on it and getting ideas and asking myself questions, looking outside myself for them and researching and getting to the bottom of something and being creative with it as an actor and how to express it in a creative fashion. That's my favorite part. And, the actual acting of it.

My image of Jesus is someone who is exciting...Were he alive today, he would be causing havoc!

Great talent admits shortcomings.

I feel like I made a little bit of difference.

I try to live my life in such a way that I don't have any regrets. That's probably why I work so much. I don't want to feel I missed something important.

Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.

To be loved, I think, is the thing that gets you up in the morning.

There's something in the very small minutia of life that tells us something about the big, big picture that we see every day all over the place, and so I think the more specific and creative and revelatory you are in the micro, the more powerful the macro will be.

I think I would have drank myself to death, literally, if I didn't just stop, once and for all when I did. I am not ever going to preach to anyone about drugs or drinking. But, for me, when they were around, I had no self control.

Success isn't what makes you happy. It really isn't. Success is doing what makes you happy and doing good work and hopefully having a fruitful life. If I've felt like I've done good work, that makes me happy. The success part of it is all gravy.

I have an awful memory, and I have a great memory. Meaning that, if I'm trying to remember something, I can't remember it. But my recall is fantastic.

The strange thing is I never thought I'd do films.

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

There’s a period of time in your life when I kind of look back, and I’m like, was I happy, or was I just not aware?

You have all the influence you choose to have.