Christopher Reeve Quotes & Sayings

#1. I have never been disabled in my dreams.

#2. I've still never had a dream that I'm disabled. Never.

#3. What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that's how I approached the part.

Christopher Reeve

#4. Misfortune can force you into doing things you should be doing anyway. Lessons come from adversity. Anything can happen to anyone ... You can find a new lease on life - more meaning than you thought possible in simple things ... Let go. Live in the moment. Go forward.

Christopher Reeve

#5. Either you vegetate and look out a window, or activate and try to effect change.

Christopher Reeve

#6. We all have many more abilities and internal resources than we know. My advice is that you don't need to break your neck to find out about them.

Christopher Reeve

#7. I don't have to prove anything to anyone. As a result, I am ready to take up again the characters who are closer to what I really am.

Christopher Reeve

#8. You learn the stuff of your life (sports, movies, traveling) ... that's not the essence of your existence, my relationships were always good. Now they have transcended (rise beyond).

Christopher Reeve

#9. When I first began acting, I assumed an intellectual responsibility attached to my profession, which I had accepted for a long time. My father taught me that an actor had to have a social and political conscience, and that the work that he does has to reflect from that.

Christopher Reeve

#10. If we don't dream of the possible,
the possible never happens.

Christopher Reeve

#11. A Hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

Christopher Reeve

#12. Success is finding satisfaction in giving a little more than you take.

Christopher Reeve

#13. You should have a dream and absolutely go for it. Don't let anybody say you can't do it.

Christopher Reeve

#14. The character is a piece of fiction. You are yourself, however, and that makes you interesting, because you're alive and you're a human being.

Christopher Reeve

#15. A hero is an ordinary person doing things in an extra ordinary way.

Christopher Reeve

#16. People may never understand this - and perhaps I should give up caring whether they do or not - but the idea of me playing Superman is so far away from what I was brought up to aspire to.

Christopher Reeve

#17. We live in a time when the words impossible and unsolvable are no longer part of the scientific community's vocabulary. Each day we move closer to trials that will not just minimize the symptoms of disease and injury but eliminate them.

Christopher Reeve

#18. I have no bones to pick and no fight with society. And I'm willing to be and interested in being in the mainstream of society.

Christopher Reeve

#19. Even if your body doesn't work the way it used to, the heart and the mind and the spirit are not diminished.

Christopher Reeve

#20. So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

Christopher Reeve

#21. By reaching out, more comes back than you can possibly imagine.

Christopher Reeve

#22. In the second half of the 20th century, people are becoming more limited: Vocabularies are smaller, thoughts are smaller, aspirations are smaller, everything is very scaled down. Everyone is typecast.

Christopher Reeve

#23. The bigger the canvas, the better I do. I'm not so good at understated, kitchen-sink kinds of parts.

Christopher Reeve

#24. Pain is inevitable. Misery is a choice.

Christopher Reeve

#25. It never occurred to me that I was a leading man until I was 19 years old. I had been acting since I was 10, so that's nine years and 30 or 40 plays, in school and summer stock, professional theater, too.

Christopher Reeve

#26. Living a life with meaning means spreading the word. Even if you can't move, you can have a powerful effect with what you say.

Christopher Reeve

#27. I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don't know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.

Christopher Reeve

#28. America is better when all of us take care of all of us.

Christopher Reeve

#29. I am a very lucky guy. I can testify before Congress. I can raise funds. I can raise awareness.

Christopher Reeve

#30. Even though I don't personally believe in the Lord, I try to behave as though He was watching.

Christopher Reeve

#31. You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.

Christopher Reeve

#32. A hero is someone who, in spite of weakness, doubt or not always knowing the answers, goes ahead and overcomes anyway.

Christopher Reeve

#33. Don't put a limit on what can be accomplished.

Christopher Reeve

#34. It's defeatist to harp on what might have been, and yet, it's hard to resist considering what might have been.

Christopher Reeve

#35. I never said I will stand, I said I hoped to stand. It wasn't a prediction.

Christopher Reeve

#36. I am optimistic. But I also know that, with time, I'm beginning to fight issues of aging as well as long-term paralysis.

Christopher Reeve

#37. Never accept ultimatums, conventional wisdom, or absolutes.

Christopher Reeve

#38. Success is not about money and power. Real success is about relationships. There's no point in making $50 million a year if your teenager thinks you're a jerk and you spend no time with your wife.

Christopher Reeve

#39. I don't think actors are to blame for poor writing. The culture changes first, and the theater follows it. In the case of the movies, it's the same thing.

Christopher Reeve

#40. You've got to give more than you take.

Christopher Reeve

#41. You should take some responsibility for the way you present yourself. But you should not be hung up on your looks, whether you are ugly or handsome, because it isn't an achievement.

Christopher Reeve

#42. What can I do today to take a step forward?

Christopher Reeve

#43. I get pretty impatient with people who are able-bodied but are somehow paralyzed for other reasons.

Christopher Reeve

#44. My father is an intellectual and physical man, which is a rather unusual combination. He's great. As he brought up me and my brothers and sisters, he ingrained in us that your appearance is not your responsibility, other than that you should not be a slob.

Christopher Reeve

#45. I'm not living the life I thought I would lead, but it does have meaning, purpose. There is love ... there is joy ... there is laughter.

Christopher Reeve

#46. Having that college-town atmosphere with a live repertory company available was a real gift. I found myself gravitating toward the theater from about the age of nine. I guess it was the environment that got me started.

Christopher Reeve

#47. Some people are walking around with full use of their bodies and they're more paralyzed than I am.

Christopher Reeve

#48. I have more awareness of other people and, I hope, more sensitivity to their needs. I also find that I'm more direct and outspoken.

Christopher Reeve

#49. In the face of adversity, hope often comes in the form of a friend who reaches out to us.

Christopher Reeve

#50. Nothing of any consequence happens unless people get behind an idea. It begins with an individual and they share the idea with more individuals-and eventually it becomes a movement.

Christopher Reeve

#51. On the wall of his rehabilitation room was a picture of the space shuttle blasting off, autographed by every astronaut now at NASA. On top of the picture it says, "We found nothing is impossible." That should be our motto.

Christopher Reeve

#52. At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable.

Christopher Reeve

#53. Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Don't sell out.

Christopher Reeve

#54. I remember telling a neurosurgeon, "Don't give me too much information, because at the moment my ignorance is my best asset."

Christopher Reeve

#55. The key to success is letting the relationships in your life grow to the highest levels they possibly can ... not putting yourself first in life and remembering that the more you give away, the more you have.

Christopher Reeve

#56. What I do is based on powers we all have inside us; the ability to endure; the ability to love, to carry on, to make the best of what we have - and you don't have to be a 'Superman' to do it.

Christopher Reeve

#57. We can either watch life from the sidelines, or actively participate ... Either we let self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy prevent us from realising our potential, or embrace the fact that when we turn our attention away from ourselves, our potential is limitless.

Christopher Reeve

#58. It's important to me to say what I really mean.

Christopher Reeve

#59. I learned years ago to come to terms with having so much done for me by others.

Christopher Reeve

#60. Once we choose hope, everything is possible.

Christopher Reeve

#61. We have a government that, generally speaking, does not respond to the people.

Christopher Reeve

#62. Maybe one way I am original is that at heart I really am a classical actor. I haven't had my chance yet in the commercial world to show that. Movies aren't really made about classical people so much any more.

Christopher Reeve

#63. Once you choose hope, anything's possible.

Christopher Reeve

#64. Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.

Christopher Reeve

#65. And if you can channel the truth of your own experience onto the stage, that's what the audience wants to see.

Christopher Reeve

#66. I'm starting a new chapter in my [[life], and you have no idea how much that means.

Christopher Reeve

#67. I did my first apprenticeship when I was 15, then joined the union when I was 17. I worked every summer in high school and college.

Christopher Reeve

#68. If I can laugh, I can live.

Christopher Reeve

#69. If you don't have a vision, nothing happens.

Christopher Reeve

#70. All the scientists who are working on solving the problem of curing paralysis say that it won't do you any good if you don't keep your body in shape.

Christopher Reeve