Top 100 Joseph Gordon-Levitt Quotes
#1. I think, honestly, that the word 'indie' is a false gimmick. 'Independent' used to mean a movie that was financed outside corporate Hollywood, but a lot of what gets called independent these days is totally produced within that system. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#2. Monuments make momentous men immortal, but more memorable are mortal men making mere moments monumental.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#4. I just want to open up the avenues for people to express themselves. That's what the media ought to be. It shouldn't just be a conveyer belt of shiny products to buy. It should be a way that we're all communicating and understanding each other.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#5. Singing doesn't have to mean that you sound like Stevie Wonder. I love to sing. I'm not the greatest singer in the world. But, a lot of my favorite singers aren't the greatest singers in the world.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#8. My mom brought me up to be a feminist. She would always point out to my brother and me that our culture does often portray women like objects.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#10. Certainly the animation technology is growing like crazy. All media technology is.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#11. Nothing is ever finished. It's a funny thing. I actually think that's really the more natural way of stories or songs.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#12. Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#13. I just love to act. It's my favorite thing to do in the world, and what keeps it interesting, to me, is the creative challenge. So, different kinds of characters, that's what I just love to do.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#15. When I was Younger, I wanted to be something.Now, I just want to be younger.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#17. After you died I realized that
I never really like hunting.
I just like hanging out with you.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#19. I stood and watched
the final sunset as the
world was ending
light that once would fall
was now ascending
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#21. I think the reason I was able to get the jobs I did is because I worked for some very strong, self-possessed filmmakers who wouldn't listen to the executive-suited wisdom, and they believed in me from director to actor. Not from salesman to commodity.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#22. Even today, in our progressive times, in most movies that come out, the men have to have biceps and the women have to be thin or something.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#26. The chemistry and the comfort and trust between two people playing a love story l is key, and to have a friend that I could trust, and whose sensibilities I already understood, made it so much easier, and is a big part of why it all looks natural on screen.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#27. When I was a teenager, if anyone recognized me for anything I did, it would ruin my day. I couldn't handle it. It was some sort of neurotic phobia. I guess I was paranoid that people would treat me differently, or in an unfair way, because of my job.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#28. To me, a sex scene in a movie generally means a gratuitous scene that doesn't serve the story but gives a kind of excuse - we've got these two actors, we want to see them naked, so let's bring in the music and the soft light.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#29. The movies I watch and the music I listen to and the books I read - those are important to me. It's very important to me, and I don't know what I would do without those things.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#31. Real life is not as simple as it is on a screen. I think real life is actually a lot more beautiful.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#32. If I read our story backwards, it's about how I un-broke your heart, and then we were happy until one day, you forgot about me forever.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#33. I'd been an actor my whole life, since I was a kid. And then, I quit for awhile and went to university. When I wanted to start acting again, I couldn't get a job, and that was really depressing. So, I realized, at that time, that I have to take responsibility for my own creativity.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#35. Media used to be one way. Everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that's healthy.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#36. There's a long, long history of women suffering abuse, injustice, and not having the same opportunities as men, and I think that's been very detrimental to the human race as a whole.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#37. I think that anybody who says 'This is the one way to go about being an actor' has probably not done a lot of professional work before.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#38. If you don't stick to your plan enough, and you're too seduced by whimsical notions and new ideas, you can kind of lose your train of thought and end up with something that doesn't have a solid through-line.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#39. Everyone has a unique perspective and that's valid. Everyone's perspective is valid. That doesn't mean that everyone has the same degree of skill level as an entertainer, but skill isn't the only important thing. It's also what kind of perspective and feelings you're bringing to it.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#40. Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#42. I tend to think having an impact on the world is a lot more complicated than government.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#43. This is the saddest, most depressing music I've ever heard.
It makes me so happy.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#45. I like making little videos and little records. I've always loved video cameras and four-track cassette recorders, still cameras, anything.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#46. I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#47. When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#48. Your kisses are snowflakes: each one is unique. They land on me, before they melt away and leave me cold.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#49. I think there is something beautiful in reveling in sadness. The proof is how beautiful sad songs can be. So I don't think being sad is to be avoided. It's apathy and boredom you want to avoid. But feeling anything is good, I think. Maybe that's sadistic of me.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#50. A man touched me: his hand ... my thigh. I touched him too: my fist ... his jaw.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#51. Life and Death took a break,
weary from their burdensome role.
Nobody lived or died that day.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#53. Making checklists of things you're looking for in a person is the numero uno thing you can do to guarantee you'll be alone forever.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#54. I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#55. I stopped getting nervous a long time ago, so any time I do get nervous, which is rare - about work, anyway - I always take that as a really good sign.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#56. "Music is something that professionals do and not something that I do." That's not natural. Music belongs to everybody.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#59. I think the dual existence thing is a regular pastime for all human beings, and for that matter anything in this universe.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#60. When I was a teenager I loved acting, but I really just loved it for myself. I didn't like the fact that anyone else saw the work I was doing. When I moved to New York, I started to realize that I wanted people to see the stuff that I was doing, and I wanted it to mean something to them.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#61. When I was 20, I went to Paris and tried to meet French women. It didn't work.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#63. I enjoy a challenge or provocation, something to think about, to talk about after it's done.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#64. This overwhelming desire to be close to you directly conflicts with my intense fear of people.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#66. Every director is different. And all the movies are very different, and the characters are very different.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#67. Everyone has the attitude that movies aren't just disposable entertainment - they can really mean something. I love that, because that's the way I feel about films.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#68. I don't think action for action's sake is so fun, but when it helps tell the story, I love doing a good fight scene.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#69. I don't buy into the glory days thing. I think every time has its great things to it. The '60s were such a glorious time but it's easy to forget that there was all sorts of bullshit too.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#71. It's a pretty intuitive process, picking the projects that I want to get involved with.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#72. Okay, I'll admit, I have a few skeletons in my closet; but they weren't skeletons when I put them there.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#74. I have a pretty eclectic taste in the movies that I like to watch, and also in the movies that I'm inspired to work on.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#75. The term 'popular culture' always used to mean what the people do - pop songs, folk songs, music in general used to live because people would sing these songs and tell these stories together. Then all of these new technologies came out and it became the work of professionals.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#76. Your heart has a little empty corner. You won't even know I'm there
I'll be very quiet.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#78. The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#79. The thing about Occupy is that the sentiment the movement embodies is timeless: Don't be greedy, share.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#80. The truth of actually working on a movie set is that you're in the midst of a logistical nightmare. There are so many things going on. There are many factors that keep your ideal scenario from ever happening. And you're rarely going to get that.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#83. I think Hollywood, as it's been, will have to change because the model of Hollywood is "we'll make this content, and you guys buy it," but I don't think that's the future.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#85. Here's the new art of the twenty-first century: the art of curating, the art of plucking all the good stuff from a superabundance of crap.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#86. I collect flickering stars
in old pickling jars,
poking holes in the lids
so they can breathe.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#87. When I started editing on my home computer, I said to myself, 'Well, I could be at home studying for a class or I could be at home editing a video.'
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#88. And in the morning
they shook their pillows
violently, hoping
all the dreams they lost
that night would tumble out.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#89. I mean, movies in general tend to sort of portray time, space and identity as these very solid things. Time moves forward. Space is what it is. You are you, and you're always you.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#91. Darkness is a lot of what art is and certainly in our community a lot of it is people sort of wrestling with their demons.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#93. I go through a lot of bad stuff, because most of the stuff that's written is pretty bad. But occasionally something comes along that's good, and I want to do it.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#94. Even when I was really young, I hated doing commercials, because I would say, "That's not real acting." And it's not. It's embarrassing what they make little kids do in commercials.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#97. The spiral in a snail's shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It's the same ratio that you'll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#99. If you do or don't like something it's because of that thing and not because it has the right politics behind them or the right company or the right connections. It's really just about the thing itself.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
#100. Why am I doing the work I'm doing? Why am I friends with this person? Am I living the best life I possibly can? Questions are often looked upon as questions of doubt but I don't see it that way at all. I question things to stay present, to make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
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