Top 100 Ethan Hawke Quotes
#1. Your development as a person should coincide with your development in all aspects of your life.
Ethan Hawke
#2. With this sunrise somehow I felt I was exactly where I was supposed to be ... Have faith, the light seemed to announce.
Ethan Hawke
#3. Time is so much a part of what makes you close to people.
Ethan Hawke
#4. The biggest problem in my life is trying to be the kind of man that I want to be, the father that I want to be, and how to process the failure of my marriage.
Ethan Hawke
#5. Ordinary effort, ordinary result ... Luck is the residue of design. Be steadfast. The anvil outlasts the hammer.
Ethan Hawke
#6. You are always in the right place at exactly the right time, and you always have been.
Ethan Hawke
#7. Possessions can be, and most often are, a distraction from the real work of a knight's life. A lion doesn't own anything at all, yet we all know his power.
Ethan Hawke
#8. Everyone has to pay their child support, and no matter if you're a Hollywood actor or anyone else, it's always a little bit more than you want to pay.
Ethan Hawke
#9. One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.
Ethan Hawke
#10. My process differs ... my process for a Richard Linklater film is very different than a process for Training Day.
Ethan Hawke
#11. Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would.
Ethan Hawke
#12. I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.
Ethan Hawke
#13. But the truth is, I've never wanted to be a movie star - and I've been pretty clear about that.
Ethan Hawke
#14. My relationship to reality has been so utterly skewed for so long that I don't even notice it any more. It's just my reality.
Ethan Hawke
#15. And the joy of my job - and it's really true - is that it's constantly evolving and changing.
Ethan Hawke
#16. Simple joys are the great ones. Pleasure is not complicated.
Ethan Hawke
#17. I love working on scripts. I love coming up with ideas about what people would dress like or talk like. I love all that.
Ethan Hawke
#18. Right now, if you're interested in being a dramatic actor, they're not making that many just regular dramas. Movies have to have some other thing going on.
Ethan Hawke
#19. If you study the history of mankind, it seems to be a history of violence. Certainly the history of art, whether you look at paintings or movies or plays or whatever, is just a litany of murder and death.
Ethan Hawke
#20. Success isn't measured by what you achieve, it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.
Ethan Hawke
#21. The most creative and most periods of my life that were, had the most growth, were the ones where I was perceived to be failing. Perceived success is a, is really hard 'cause it doesn't really, it's not asking you to grow, see failure is asking you to grow.
Ethan Hawke
#22. When an analogy is really singing, it's what you want it to be.
Ethan Hawke
#23. Understanding that he relies on all that surrounds him, a knight is kind above all.
Ethan Hawke
#24. To head north, a knight may use the North Star to guide him, but he will not arrive at the North Star. A knight's duty is to proceed in that direction.
Ethan Hawke
#25. Directing is like putting together a collage.
Ethan Hawke
#26. Now I have a theory that if a woman wants to keep a man she only needs to say two things: She believes in him and he's got a big a cock. That's all it takes. It doesn't even have to be true.
Ethan Hawke
#27. At every turn, when humanity is asked the question, 'Do you want temporary economic gain or long-term environmental loss, which one do you prefer,' we invariably choose the money.
Ethan Hawke
#28. You can't keep wanting to be 20 years old. Everybody knows that, but what's in the next room?
Ethan Hawke
#29. Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent.
Ethan Hawke
#30. Right now the only people I can really fall in love with are people who don't really, truly want me around. Now why do I do that?
Ethan Hawke
#31. I remember being a kid and sleeping over at my friend's house and staying up late and watching 'Nosferatu.' Vampire movies are supposed to be secret and bad. They should be rated R.
Ethan Hawke
#32. It's difficult to do a genre film well, and it doesn't matter if you're talking vampire movies or 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'The Thing' or 'Escape From New York.' Those kind of movies, they understand what the old-school B-movie is supposed to be, they get the throwback of it.
Ethan Hawke
#33. A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare.
Ethan Hawke
#34. The constant buzz and pressure and noise and static of the Internet, and the way it makes young people feel makes it difficult to grow up and develop the way one might want to.
Ethan Hawke
#35. It's interesting to work with Emma [Watson] so quickly after Harry Potter. When we shot this movie, it wasn't that long after Harry Potter was finished, and it's knowing that's a big transition in her life. She's a very talented young woman.
Ethan Hawke
#36. A knight sets out to illuminate the darkness in society, not from its leaves but from its roots. This is how justice will be realized. Find the source
Ethan Hawke
#37. Don't you find it odd," she continued, "that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try.
Ethan Hawke
#38. The kindest compliments I have ever heard are when cops tell me Training Day and Assault on Precinct 13 inspired them to become cops. The funniest compliments I have ever heard are when people tell me that 'I love your band Sugar Ray.
Ethan Hawke
#39. Read. It makes you more intelligent. It's that simple. We all see the universe through the tiny keyhole of our own eyes, and every book is another keyhole from which you can gaze.
Ethan Hawke
#40. Some things suck; they hurt bad. The question is, Do you have the courage to let them?
Ethan Hawke
#41. The only thing I can point to of why I survived is I have a family that loves me and never wanted any money from me.
Ethan Hawke
#42. It was fantastic to be on the set again with Denzel (Washington) and Antoine (Fuqua) and then to have the situation be so different. We weren't making a sequel to Training Day. We were in the middle of the desert riding around on some horses.
Ethan Hawke
#43. I did this movie, Predestination, and it's one of my favorite movies I've ever made, because sci-fi really lets you talk about ideas in a way that's not pretentious.
Ethan Hawke
#44. Everything is so finite but that's what makes our time and specific moments so important.
Ethan Hawke
#45. If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.
Ethan Hawke
#46. I've always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don't care if it's in movies or theater or whatever - if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in.
Ethan Hawke
#47. My goal is to tell good stories. And to try as best I can to do something new with acting. To learn from the past and to be a relevant artist. To make stories that are interesting and contemporary and to tell some kind of emotional truth.
Ethan Hawke
#48. If you covet fame, if you covet all the superficial accolades, you're gonna be miserable 'cause you're never going to get enough praise. If you covet contributing something substantive to movies, music, literature, then you won't be unhappy.
Ethan Hawke
#49. It's certainly an interesting moment to try to talk about, 'cause you could make a great show about the police force right now, with all that's happening in the news and Ferguson and all of it.
Ethan Hawke
#50. There have always been two ways to be rich: by accumulating vast sums or by needing very little.
Ethan Hawke
#51. I've had several moments in my career where it seemed like I might not age out of the bracket the world wants to put you in. It's hard to keep growing up inside the performing arts. It's very difficult, and presents a lot of unique challenges.
Ethan Hawke
#52. I think that if you walk through this life and I end up being a bad father, then it won't matter anything else I achieved in my life. It will all be irrelevant.
Ethan Hawke
#53. I really did Regression to work with Alejandro [Amenabar]. I found him very interesting. His movie, The Others, is one of the better scary movies of the last period of time.
Ethan Hawke
#54. There's something about knowing life is finite that makes it so precious.
Ethan Hawke
#55. I can't tell you how many times in the '90s I'd meet somebody, we'd be having a nice time, and they'd sigh and go, 'This is exactly like Before Sunrise.' And I'd have to get up and leave.
Ethan Hawke
#56. In fact, I think my life is always going to be difficult, because I am trying to do something ... "original" is a big word. It's kind of pathetic, but I have to love what I'm doing.
Ethan Hawke
#57. It is the fact that time is passing that creates its preciousness.
Ethan Hawke
#58. Grace is the ability to accept change. Be open and supple; the brittle break.
Ethan Hawke
#59. One of the things that's really lousy about making movies is that you have such little interaction with your audience.
Ethan Hawke
#60. The Woodstock Film festival is among the finest of a dying breed: a festival that isn't trying to sell you anything, but simply and beautifully celebrating the art & craft of filmmaking.
Ethan Hawke
#61. Oh, I like going down the rabbit hole. You know, that's kind of my job. When you play Macbeth, you gotta dive down that one. The trick is figuring out how to do it with love and a sense of humor so you can pop back out again. But, kind of the actor's job is to go down the rabbit hole.
Ethan Hawke
#62. The writing process was some of the most exciting and rewarding moments of my life. It felt a lot like being in a band.
Ethan Hawke
#63. Sometimes people save the best part of themselves for their art.
Ethan Hawke
#64. We're fascinated by things that scare us, and one of the things that scares us is violence. Violence exists. It's a real part of our lives. We are obsessed with what we're scared of, but it certainly doesn't define us.
Ethan Hawke
#65. I'm horrified to admit that I just love Salinger. I was devastated to find out that other people feel the same way.
Ethan Hawke
#66. When you do 'Before Sunset,' you know while it's a limited audience, there was a very small group of people that love 'Before Sunrise.' You feel a certain pressure to make sure that you uphold a level of quality that has been a bar. You set a bar and you have to at least match it.
Ethan Hawke
#67. To get to be somebody who gets to love what they do for a living, that's so rare, and so there must be some kind of price you have to pay.
Ethan Hawke
#68. I do not want you children to use my untimely death, or any setback that life may deliver, as an excuse not to take responsibility for yourselves.
Ethan Hawke
#69. The theater, for me, has always been a place where I'm free to be more creative, a place to sharpen my tools.
Ethan Hawke
#70. It is quite rare to find people who are really dedicated to a level of excellence. Most of us are really quite lazy most of the time.
Ethan Hawke
#71. Sometimes people, their creative drive comes from an energy to try to heal themselves.
Ethan Hawke
#72. It was never in my dreams to make my personal life anybody else's business.
Ethan Hawke
#73. I like [that] there's a certain inherent drama to those jobs that is exciting to tell stories about and it's still real life. I'm a little less interested in the current fad of being obsessed with superheroes and things that are so out of the box.
Ethan Hawke
#74. There's only so often you're going to have an opportunity to contribute at a high level and that you should be grateful whenever one presents itself and not take it lightly.
Ethan Hawke
#75. I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for.
Ethan Hawke
#76. Whenever a really passionate, talented filmmaker seems to have an interest in me, I take it very seriously because I like to work.
Ethan Hawke
#77. Like a dead branch falling from a tree, which them decomposes and nourishes the soil, your disappointments can transform into the elements of change and growth.
Ethan Hawke
#78. I always felt that a marriage works best at a farm ... where you're together and everybody has clear-cut roles; they have chores, 'you take care of this' and you know. But it's hard.
Ethan Hawke
#79. The idea that a film is created in the editing room - it's only a certain kind of movie that's made in the editing room and it's not one that I really want to see.
Ethan Hawke
#80. Give your heart to everybody you meet. The rest is pretense.
Ethan Hawke
#81. I don't think Emma Watson needs any advice. She's an incredibly smart young woman who knows what she wants out of life and she has some great parents.
Ethan Hawke
#82. Sometimes in the life of an actor you're not getting offered any jobs that speak to you. The trouble with acting is that you're only as good as your opportunities.
Ethan Hawke
#83. I've had different opportunities in my life, but I've tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it's really not a barometer at all.
Ethan Hawke
#84. In your mid-twenties, the paint is still wet on who you are.
Ethan Hawke
#85. Emma Watson is my kids' favorite actor on the planet. They never took me more seriously than when I was working with her.
Ethan Hawke
#86. As a young man ... you don't know anything about yourself. And add on to that, you're on the cover of magazines. People are interviewing you about what you think. You feel like a real phony.
Ethan Hawke
#87. Happiness is in the doing not in getting what you want.
Ethan Hawke
#88. All that stuff with the tabloids is a kind of luxury tax I pay for all the good things I do in my life.
Ethan Hawke
#89. I believe in the healing restorative power of art and communication. And so that's probably my rule. But that doesn't apply to bedtimes. And stuff like that.
Ethan Hawke
#90. I've always been interested in directing. I started acting when I was thirteen years old, so I've had some desire to do something else in my life.
Ethan Hawke
#91. We live in a funny time. If you don't go corporate, you can't compete. You're relegated as irrelevant. People used to admire that.
Ethan Hawke
#93. I think that as soon as you think of yourself as a famous person or anything like that, you're objectifying yourself in some weird way.
Ethan Hawke
#94. One of the hardest things about my job is that there kind of is no one rulebook that applies to all situations.
Ethan Hawke
#95. I auditioned for Robert Redford once and I was so starstruck I couldn't even speak. I had a mic wire at a screen test clipped to me and then I got kind of nervous and I paced in a circle and then took a step and tripped and fell on my face. You just have to forgive yourself and keep going on.
Ethan Hawke
#96. The experience on that movie ( Dead Poets Society ) was, for lack of a better term, life-altering. Peter Weir has a unique talent for making movies that are intelligent but also mainstream. I've never been terribly successful at doing that.
Ethan Hawke
#97. [She] and I were giving each other the only thing we truly have to offer: our time. We were going to give each other the living minutes of our life.
Ethan Hawke
#98. I never thought that I would be labeled something like Generation X because of that movie ( Reality Bites ). I had no idea going into it, and it wasn't a label I could relate to.
Ethan Hawke
#99. When I woke up I was naked. I have this one oddball idiosyncrasy: Sometimes in my sleep I take off all my clothes.
Ethan Hawke
#100. My favorite stories are human, so I'm always looking for.
Ethan Hawke
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