Top 148 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Downey, Jr. - Page 2

Growing up is something that you do your whole life. I want to always feel that I can be a kid if I want. Growing up has some negative connotations. Like, you're not supposed to roll around on the ground anymore. You're not supposed to make fun of yourself. You're not supposed to ride a bicycle. But I'm a Toys-R-Us kid.

McDonald's being the official restaurant of the Olympics is like smoking being the official medicine of cancer.

Im such a work in progress at the moment, its crazy, and life wants me on edge, I swear to you. But as long as I dont forget the past, Im cool. One must always be mindful, just like you might forget that old girlfriend who tried to slit your throat, but shes really still hot. If you remember the stitches more than you remember the pussy, youre going to be just fine.

The higher the stakes, the happier I am, the better I will be.

At the end of the day, anything I think I'm sacrificing I'm just giving up because it makes me feel better.

People never change because they are under threat or under duress. Never. They change because they see something that makes their life seem valuable enough to start moving toward a life worth living.

If I was a lawyer, I'd be my own best client.

To me, friendship means loving tolerance.

I remember when people said, "Man, that's a powerful scene in the movie!" and I was like, "We just shot this thing before lunch, I don't know, he tears a log apart, I said some words".

I make faces for cash and chicken.

Give me a scotch, I'm starving.

Nothing will serve you better than a strong work ethic. Nothing. And it's something that you can't teach. You have to be thrown into it, where you're going to sink or swim. It's amazing how self-correcting and how clarifying a good, hard, shitty job can be. Because at the end of the day, any profession I've seen anybody in, when you peer behind the curtains of Oh, wouldn't that be a great job? Wow, what an amazing thing, a philanthropic endeavor! it really just comes down to It's a f**king grind.

There's somewhere you're supposed to go, and if you get quiet enough, you'll make it.

Nobody learns a German aria overnight, except Jared Harris.

It's weird when one movie that's connected to another doesn't reference that movie at all.

I don't drink these days. I am allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs.

Job one is get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don't change.

My old man had a philosophy: peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.

A lot of my peer group think I'm an eccentric bisexual, like I may even have an ammonia-filled tentacle somewhere on my body. That's okay.

I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal, yet all those years I was chasing after it I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends and family.

I think it's miraculous that anybody survives themselves.

Sometimes you're not supposed to enjoy it [acting]. You're supposed to cooperate with misery and proceed anyway. But what I do enjoy is a sense of well-being and just participating in life and life's turns.

I just think it's good to be confident. If I'm not on my team why should anybody else be?

I don't need an Iron Man suit. I'm already a weapon of mass seduction.

I know who I am. I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.

I would say that among my many huge emotional miscalculations was my taking a film career for granted. It is the most awesome privilege to be able to use one's imagination and wit, physicality and musicality, conscious brain and unconscious instinct in the service of a work that has a chance to move and excite and amuse and delight people all over the world, including long after we're dead. What a noble calling! And I felt it was just there for me as a kind of given, some sort of inherited birthright-when in reality it's the most magnificent luxury.

The old saying is true, behind every good man theres an incredible woman.

I've always felt that if you're not on your side, why should anyone else be. So I always encourage people to be confident, and sometime even a little falsely so, just so you can give yourself an opportunity.

You know, when you're part of a comedic duo, you can take breaks. It's kind of like having a partner that is good with a kid.

There are some parents who have really done it right and told their kid, 'You know, we have this dough, none of this is for you. You have to get your own.

I'm a soldier who didn't know how nasty the battle was going to be, and now, I've got a purple heart and I'm back.

And last but not the least

Worrying is like praying for something you don't want to happen. I have such an overwhelming sense that if you're in the right state of heart, the next right thing appears to you.

If you're anything like me there are days when you're convinced you know more than everyone around you. Which is often confirmed by your interactions with people.

I like to be a little more difficult to nail down that that just inside myself, but when someone's motivations, even if they wind up falling in one side or the other of the debate, when they're personal and also when they're masked by something that only the audience knows is really their motivation, that to me is just what I call entertainment.

It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and I like the taste of metal

If I was a Pokemon, I'll either be a Psyduck or a Jigglypuff.

I'm an actor, a husband, a father of two, and a full-time Avenger.

Everyone has a story, and the story changes, and the more I can root into the truth of things - it's so hard - I don't think anyone ever really puts it all together. But somewhere along the way it all became fused.

I'm not a poster boy for good behavior and recovery in Hollywood, I'm just a guy who knows he has a lot to be grateful for.

Smoking dope and smoking coke, you are rendered defenseless. The only way out of that hopeless state is intervention.

It’s such a floating freak show. You get a bit older and you start to see what’s going on backstage in the collective psyche of this ridiculous industry. … Nothing pleases me more than when somebody who was awe-inspired to be working with me realizes I’m just another schmuck that they’re bored of hanging out with on a set. I love that moment. I like it when that persistent illusion is smashed.

People rise out of the ashes because, at some point, they are invested with a belief in the possibility of triumph over seemingly impossible odds.

Worrying is like praying for something you don't want to happen.

Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I'm not afraid of total failure because I don't think that will happen. I'm not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It's being in the middle that scares me.

I have a sense of destiny that you are led to the things you are supposed to do.

You have to let go of the things that are darling to you. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on the shape of the scene and the intention of what everyone else needs.

Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you're here or out in the world dealing with problems. It's second nature for me now. I don't even get to the point where there's a problem.

There is unpanned gold in every soul you run into, no matter what walk of life they are from.

[Addiction's] not about placating the bad dog - it's about feeding the good dog. You still have to feed the bad dog, but only enough so that the ASPCA doesn't bring you up on charges.

I'm not used to feeling like I belong where I am.

I don't like words coming out of a character's mouth that I adore because not only is he a little bit duplicitous but he's kind of practical in the way he thinks, and he thinks in terms of everyone's humanity and how quickly we can go against what we think we meant when we said it or what we believe or blah, blah, blah.

I don't think I'm in any position to give anybody advice about anything.

I'm not a method guy. I can't be bothered to have a method. I just want to be a part of a good movie and I can't stand to be surrounded by morons.

Discipline for me is about respect. It's not even about self-respect; it's about respect for life and all it offers.

I have a really interesting political point of view, and its not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you cant go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You cant. I wouldnt wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics every since.

I need a lot of support... Life is really hard, and I don't see some active benevolent force out there. I see it as basically a really cool survival game. You get on the right side of the tracks, and you now are actually working with what some people would call magic.

Im thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, Why stop at one? I don't like being limited in that way. Therefore, I'm considering a platton of monkeys, so that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing feces around.

Violent ground-acquisition games such as football are in fact a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war.

I am in the continual process of transcending fear-based rituals