Top 100 Ethan Hawke Quotes
#1. Everyone is saying, "How is it with Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez?" and I say, "You're forgetting the third star." And they're like, "The car?" It's totally a star.
Courtney Solomon
#2. As for futuristic costumes, I loved doing 'Gattaca' because I'm a minimalist at heart, and it's a very minimal film. Plus, with Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Jude Law, how could you go wrong?
Colleen Atwood
#3. Then there are actors my age like Ethan Hawke, he's in 'Moby Dick,' I love his work. I've been lucky. Alfred Molina, he has real class.
Billy Boyd
#4. Ethan Hawke is not a horror movie fan, but he's a really good friend of mine, and I finally cajoled him into doing 'Sinister.' Later, he said one of the reasons he was really resistant to doing a horror movie is he thought it'd be really scary on set.
Jason Blum
#5. In America, celebrities who go to see your show will come backstage and introduce themselves. Meeting Annette Bening and Ethan Hawke that way was amazing, but when Tom Hanks came, it was really special - I've loved him since I first saw him in 'Big!'
Tom Riley
#6. Before Midnight is one of the years best movies. Full to the brim with humor, heartbreak, and ravishing romance. Richard Linklater directs with ardor and artistry. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy shine brilliantly. Heads up, Oscar. This ones a keeper.
Peter Travers
#7. I don't really know [who my favorite vampire is]. I always think, 'Ethan Hawke in Interview with a Vampire,' and someone will say, 'He's not the vampire. He's the interviewer.'
Robert Pattinson
#8. Your development as a person should coincide with your development in all aspects of your life.
Ethan Hawke
#9. In all of our society, but especially in Hollywood, there is an obsession with perfection that can lead to self-loathing and neurosis and all that kind of stuff.
Ethan Hawke
#10. With this sunrise somehow I felt I was exactly where I was supposed to be ... Have faith, the light seemed to announce.
Ethan Hawke
#11. I don't know what has happened to movies, but lately every movie is at least 20 minutes too long. It used to be that if you were three hours long it was because it was epic - a movie about Gandhi; something with very important subject matters.
Ethan Hawke
#12. Time is so much a part of what makes you close to people.
Ethan Hawke
#13. 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
#14. Ordinary effort, ordinary result ... Luck is the residue of design. Be steadfast. The anvil outlasts the hammer.
Ethan Hawke
#15. There's some kind of actors that can radically change who they are from movie to movie. I've never really been that kind of actor. I enjoy changing the worlds that I'm in.
Ethan Hawke
#16. You are always in the right place at exactly the right time, and you always have been.
Ethan Hawke
#17. 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
#18. With practice, you build the road to accomplish your goals. Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don't save anything for the walk home.
Ethan Hawke
#19. 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
#20. I think it's my job to risk looking foolish. One of the things I've learned from the actors I've worked with is you don't get something for nothing. If you don't risk looking foolish, you'll never do anything special.
Ethan Hawke
#21. People are conditioned to just you know, like, you know we're like little birdies going to the bird feeder you know, or the little cows going to the salt lick. We just like what we've seen before.
Ethan Hawke
#22. 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
#23. If someone asks me if I believe in God, I shake my head like I couldn't give a shit, but the truth is, I do. I just don't know what to do about it.
Ethan Hawke
#24. It's difficult to make any kind of action movie that might be unique or worth watching.
Ethan Hawke
#25. My process differs ... my process for a Richard Linklater film is very different than a process for Training Day.
Ethan Hawke
#26. 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
#28. I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.
Ethan Hawke
#29. But the truth is, I've never wanted to be a movie star - and I've been pretty clear about that.
Ethan Hawke
#30. 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
#31. And the joy of my job - and it's really true - is that it's constantly evolving and changing.
Ethan Hawke
#32. Remember, a friend does not need you to impress him. A friend loves you because you are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. Beware of grand gestures; the real mettle of friendship is forged in life's daily workings.
Ethan Hawke
#33. Simple joys are the great ones. Pleasure is not complicated.
Ethan Hawke
#34. I take pleasure in the little things. Double cheeseburgers, those are good, the sky ten minutes before it rains,the moment your laugh turns into a cackle. And I sit here, and smoke my Camel straights, and I ride my own melt.
Ethan Hawke
#36. 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
#37. 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
#38. I'd really rather that nobody had a gun, and then nobody would have to worry about it. That would be more my theory. In America, there's this knee-jerk response that more walls and more guns make people safer, and I'm entirely suspect of that way of thinking.
Ethan Hawke
#39. 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
#40. I'd be lying if I said I had confidence in every choice I've made, that I have faith in every film I do on every shot.
Ethan Hawke
#41. Success isn't measured by what you achieve, it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.
Ethan Hawke
#42. 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
#43. When an analogy is really singing, it's what you want it to be.
Ethan Hawke
#44. Understanding that he relies on all that surrounds him, a knight is kind above all.
Ethan Hawke
#45. When you start becoming really successful, the demons start to tempt you - the demons of vanity and self importance, drug abuse, the feelings of fraudulence. But, it's also a thrill. That's what I found weird.
Ethan Hawke
#47. The truth is that the more you get paid, the less freedom you have. They never pay you for nothing.
Ethan Hawke
#48. 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
#49. Now it's different, and to me it was shockingly humble, but there with my girl in my arms and our child in her belly I knew I had reached the moment my life had been waiting for. I was going to be a father and a husband.
I spanked her bottom and cranked up the tunes.
Ethan Hawke
#50. Directing is like putting together a collage.
Ethan Hawke
#51. 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
#52. If my kids are doing well, then my life is going pretty well. And if my kids aren't doing well, it doesn't matter how the other elements of my life are. It's kind of amazing to have a context like that. This is really wonderful.
Ethan Hawke
#53. 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
#54. You can't keep wanting to be 20 years old. Everybody knows that, but what's in the next room?
Ethan Hawke
#55. Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent.
Ethan Hawke
#56. 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
#57. 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
#58. 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
#59. 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
#60. The peregrine falcon is the swiftest, most adept animal I have ever seen. It is worth noting that, like many bird, the falcon's bones are hollow. Travel light.
Ethan Hawke
#61. Expect nothing, and you will enjoy everything!
Ethan Hawke
#62. 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
#63. We all have this fantasy of finding our one true love who's going to be the perfect fit. It's just not a reality.
Ethan Hawke
#64. 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
#65. 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
#66. 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
#67. 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
#68. And the best films feel like a fist punching you in the solar plexus and all elements of the filmmaking process - the acting, the design, the cinematography, the music, is all working to one end.
Ethan Hawke
#69. 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
#70. We passed gas stations and chain food restaurants, with their billboards advertising happiness. I know the images in magazines and on TV aren't true representations of the world; I mean, that's obvious. But I still get this sinking feeling of disappointment, as if it is the world I should see.
Ethan Hawke
#71. Some things suck; they hurt bad. The question is, Do you have the courage to let them?
Ethan Hawke
#72. 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
#73. 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
#74. 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
#75. You know, I auditioned for 'Titanic.' Sometimes I muse on what would have happened. That would have been such a different life.
Ethan Hawke
#76. Everything is so finite but that's what makes our time and specific moments so important.
Ethan Hawke
#77. Depression is a real demon in the woods for a lot of creative people, you know? It's part of what the documentary is trying to be about for me, finding balance, where the beauty that is attainable in the creative arts can be matched with the scratchy roughness of regular life.
Ethan Hawke
#78. 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
#79. 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
#80. 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
#81. We all see the world through the prism of our identity.
Ethan Hawke
#82. I feel like everyone I meet is an imaginary friend. I don't know. The older I get the more I wonder what's real.
Ethan Hawke
#83. Which wolf will win?...
whichever one you feed
Ethan Hawke
#84. The older I get, the more obvious it is that you're not really in control of your life, you're a part of a larger wave, no matter who you are.
Ethan Hawke
#85. I've had a lot of experience in independent film, and about how to choose. You've got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks, and where you cut and what you don't cut.
Ethan Hawke
#86. It just makes sense to remember gratitude and the place that gratitude should have in your life, and that none of us are owed these wonderful experiences, and we should always make the best of them.
Ethan Hawke
#87. 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
#88. 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
#89. There have always been two ways to be rich: by accumulating vast sums or by needing very little.
Ethan Hawke
#90. 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
#91. I met a lot of famous people when I was about 24. And none of them seemed very appealing. And so I didn't know why I would struggle to be that kind of person.
Ethan Hawke
#92. 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
#93. Those who cannot easily forgive will not collect many friends. Look for the best in others and yourself.
Ethan Hawke
#94. 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
#95. I did one sci-fi movie. I did 'Gattaca.' I liked 'Gattaca' because that was always the kind of science fiction I really dug, the non-action oriented sci-fi.
Ethan Hawke
#96. There's something about knowing life is finite that makes it so precious.
Ethan Hawke
#97. 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
#98. It's so hard for every young person, trying to figure out the adult you want to be.
Ethan Hawke
#99. 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
#100. It is the fact that time is passing that creates its preciousness.
Ethan Hawke
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