Top 97 Quotes & Sayings by Tommy Lee Jones

Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.

The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is 'When is lunch?'

There's an undeniable tradition of sexism in this country that ties into the move westward by people of European descent and different ways of looking at Manifest Destiny on the west side of the Mississippi River.

I don't get it. If you're saying, Tommy Lee, you don't fit the image of the East Coast, social elitist wealthy people who comprise Harvard, the only thing I can say is you have no idea what comprises Harvard.

In the political world, the only position I have is voter. I'm not a spokesman for anything.

Partnerships are good engines for narrative.

What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.

As it turns out, my grandmother, my mother, my wife, and my daughter are all women, and I like those people. I'm concerned about the issues that they face in their lives. So I'm a feminist, but that's not all I am.

My home town is very small and very remote and we don't have a movie house.

I love cinema.

I'm always happy to have a job.

If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.

I don't direct movies for a living.

Normal people with normal problems can be hilarious.

It's no fun to be a struggling young actor. It's a desperate thing, no way to be happy. If you have any alternative, you should take it.

Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.

I know a lot of cowboys and I've done a little work on ranches with cattle, and those people become your friends, and keep their word.

I want to photograph what I see and put it in a dramatic context. I'm an actor and a writer, and I want to tell these stories and present these shapes, colors and movements as I see them, as I see them serve a narrative. As I see that narrative serve an audience. That's what I want to do.

The world's not a very comfortable place if you have a nightmare to face.

In the course of American history, great steps are taken by ordinary people, and ordinary people are not perfect.

My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative.

You know, I don't really think you have to play nice guys.

If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.

The entire elementary school in Rotan, Texas, presented a theatrical production of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.' And the part of Sneezy fell to me.

I felt like the luckiest kid in the world because God had put me on the ground in Texas. I actually felt sorry for those poor little kids that had to be born in Oklahoma or England or some place. I knew I was living in the best place in the world.

I do not have a sense of humor of any recognizable sort.

I think any stereotyping is too much.

As an actor I want to do as many takes as I can. I wanna shoot the scene... or shoot the shot 'til they make me quit.

I always told my children when they whined... Only the boring are bored.

If you don't hurt anybody or try to steal anything, you'll be fine in the South.

I don't think I would describe my sense of humor. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd do.

I don't analyze things like titles.

No, I don't think about the myth of the West. It's not the kind of thinking I do. That's more suited to people who live in big towns on the West Coast or East Coast, people who stay under a roof, in a room, all the time.

I look upon pride as a sin.

No director wants to be directed, but no good director... would shy away from the good ideas of others.

Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.

Human beings are glorious and preposterous characters.

I haven't had a lot of comedy come my way as a performer.

I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.

As an actor to watch an audience of people howl together in a single mind as a result of work you've done together with friends is a privilege.

I think that no matter how much you don't like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it.

I fear other actors who are not prepared. And I fear directors who are afraid.

I enjoy acting more and more than when I was 17.

I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival.

The quality of one's emotional life changes over the years, doesn't it? But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In the larger scope of things, there's a sense of fulfillment to living a creative life. So I guess that's what keeps me going.

Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.

I don't play just villains. I like to have parts that are not simply villains.

As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.

I personally don't live a nihilistic life, I don't have any use for it.

I think any thinking person should be worried about climate change.

I don't do anything that is not fun. I just don't do it.

I haven't a clue if there is life on other planets but I'd be charmed if we found a unicellular organism on Mars. It would change our whole concept of life on Earth.

I have nothing against interviews. I don't pursue them. When people I work for deem it appropriate, I'm perfectly willing to serve.

I've worked in the film business for 45 years, and I want to keep on growing as a filmmaker. I want to see my visual life grow and be increasingly effective in this world.

I'm a hedonist.

Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused.

My education as a filmmaker has been entirely practical. I started working professionally in the film business in 1970, and I've been at it steadily since, and I pay a lot of attention.

I've made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!

I don't fight anybody anytime or anywhere.

You can't instruct an audience to laugh, but what you can do is read well and understand the spirit and subtleties, if there are any, in the dialogue.