Top 100 Philip Seymour Hoffman Quotes
#1. I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'd be dead.'
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#3. Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#5. If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#6. Bob Glaudini, the writer, he's a wonderfully talented man and all his plays and his screenplays, they all have sense of something bigger, even though you're looking at something very simple.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#7. If all people are encouraged to actually see who they're coexisting with, or even if they're not coexisting with other people.It's like to look at the world you're in.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#10. I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#11. You know the circus performer who spins the plates in the air you know, and he'll spin six or seven plates in the air? Acting sometimes is kind of that guy spinning all those plates in the air but in your head and in your body.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#14. I have an awful memory, and I have a great memory. Meaning that, if I'm trying to remember something, I can't remember it. But my recall is fantastic.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#16. People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#17. I do feel like all the people I meet, all the people I'm in discussions with, if I'm working with somebody, I sense the same energy that everybody is suffering from the same predicament.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#18. When you're playing someone who really lived, you carry a burden, a burden to be accurate. But it's one that you have to let go of ultimately.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#20. My love for the theater has always been a priority. That hasn't changed. I got into acting that way. The film work that came up was really a surprise.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#22. Don't let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they're bored and step on you when they're done. Be like drugs, let them die for you.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#24. A self-awareness moment. All of a sudden everything he has done comes flashing into his mind, a self-criticism that is unbearable.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#25. The ambition, the drive, the wanting to be the center of attention, the wanting to succeed ... They're all inside me somewhere.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#27. Film's hard when you don't have any relationship with the director at all and you just show up. Then you really are just a gun for hire.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#29. I think you gotta have an honesty and a humility about human nature and that it's not about you at the end of the day.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#30. I'm probably more personal when I'm acting than at any other time. More open, more direct. Because it allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, you know? Because it's make- believe.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#32. There's things that you don't want to do and they keep haunting you and following you. Bennett Miller directed this project [Capote], who is a friend of mine since I was 16, and Danny Futterman wrote it, and he's also been a friend of mine since I was 16.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#33. Acting's difficult for me because I think you have to be passionately involved in what you're doing.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#34. Sometimes being an actor is like being some kind of detective where you're on the search for a secret that will unlock the character.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#35. For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, that's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great - well, that's absolutely torturous.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#36. I've seen a lot of friends who have a lot of great projects, whether it's a script or a play or whatever, and it is a great project and they have great people involved, and they can't make it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#38. It's important to say that actors can't act alone, it's impossible. What we have to do is support each other.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#40. My image of Jesus is someone who is exciting ... Were he alive today, he would be causing havoc!
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#43. Life is short. Time is short. As we get older, time does quicken. It's long, and it's long pertaining to that thought, that the past is not done with you because you can't rid of it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#45. People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#47. When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#48. The weight comes off, you know? If you stop with the bread and the pie, it really does. It really works.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#49. I have a fine level of recognition in the business and among the acting community now, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. If I didn't think that, there would be something wrong with me. I'm grateful and thankful for what I've got.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#50. I do understand what it is to not want to commit to someone, knowing that might bring pain or commit to a life that has to do with being responsible to people other than myself. These things, I think, are normal things.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#51. Sometimes it's hard to say no. Ultimately, if you stick to your guns, you have the career that you want. Don't get me wrong. I love a good payday and I'll do films for fun. But ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#53. Sometimes I'm uncomfortable with the level of fame I've got! It all depends on the day and what's going on. I don't desire any more fame. I don't need it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#54. Being with a kid always takes you to being a kid somehow, and they really are showing me a childhood I might not have had in some way.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#56. When you're acting, you're subjective; when you're a director, you're more objective.You're kind of watching from the outside and helping others, and therefore I learn my mistakes through others, and also my assets through others.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#57. Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#58. Sometimes I have a great day of filming and sometimes the theater strikes me better. It just depends.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#59. I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#60. In order for something to be born, something has to die.That's not always, but there is something about that that I find to be true. That is, it's a natural thing.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#61. I think good art, if I could be pretentious enough to say, I think good art deals with the micro to explain the macro.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#62. I always thought I'd be a New York theater actor, riding my bicycle to rehearsal. That was all I ever wanted.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#63. Success isn't what makes you happy. It really isn't. Success is doing what makes you happy and doing good work and hopefully having a fruitful life. If I've felt like I've done good work, that makes me happy. The success part of it is all gravy.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#64. I think part of why I have so many books around me and why I read every day is because I mythologize the writer. I don't do that with any other artists.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#66. No one wants to be pretentious about what they do or take it seriously, because that is just weird.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#67. Sometimes I take a temperature of things just because everyone else does. Especially when I'm doing a play. I want to know what people are thinking, positive or negative.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#70. When you read, you think, and when you smoke, you think. It's a pleasurable thing, and not a duty.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#71. You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#73. My mum's name is Marilyn O'Connor. She's here tonight and I would like if you see her for you to congratulate her because she brought up four kids alone and she deserves congratulations for that.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#78. I would definitely say pleasure is not happiness. Because I think I kill pleasure. Like I take too much of it in, and therefore make it un-pleasurable, like too much coffee, and you're miserable.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#79. I think therapy is a helpful thing. I think everyone knows it. You do it for your life, you do it for yourself, because you want to explore some things, and get at the bottom of some things. It's about your life, the quality of your life.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#80. If I don't feel like I'm doing the job well, and I don't know how to get there, or I'm too scared, or whatever, I'm not a happy guy and I'm not pleasant. I'm not pleasant to be around.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#82. I had insecurities and fears like everybody does, and I got over it. But I was interested in the parts of me that struggled with those things.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#83. There's something in the very small minutia of life that tells us something about the big, big picture that we see every day all over the place, and so I think the more specific and creative and revelatory you are in the micro, the more powerful the macro will be.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#84. I work constantly but I work at a lot of different things. You know, I run a theater company in New York, I direct plays, act in plays, in movies, so I try to keep it eclectic.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#87. I was probably finding my feet more than anybody. I really have to say I was more obsessed with myself faltering than anybody else.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#88. If I was a little bit younger I would worry more. I'd want to do one thing at a time but now I try to do a bunch of different things at a time if I can.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#91. If I'm directing actors, I learn about acting that way. If I'm acting, I learn about directing that way. Producing is just something that's come about because there's projects I find interesting that I would like to help get done.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#94. You have to have a personal connection. You have to really want to do it, because if you don't, investing yourself personally, your thoughts, your emotions, yourself into a part, is something you're not going to want to do as much.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#95. I think Magnolia is one of the best films I've ever seen and I can say that straight and out and anybody that disagrees with me I'll fight you to the death. I just think it is one of the greatest films I've ever been in and ever seen.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#97. I try to live my life in such a way that I don't have any regrets. That's probably why I work so much. I don't want to feel I missed something important.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#98. I've worked with a lot of characters that are unhinged. I've played characters that are unhinged. That's, like, my job.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#99. Directing is a really kind of amazing thing, because you're helping others and, in the middle of that, you have to worry about yourself.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#100. I think you ultimately have to love who you're playing. You have to have that kind of feeling. You have to have passion for the person.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
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