Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused.
Tommy Lee Jones
I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival.
I do not have a sense of humor of any recognizable sort.
I think any thinking person should be worried about climate change.
Partnerships are good engines for narrative.
As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.
In the course of American history, great steps are taken by ordinary people, and ordinary people are not perfect.
There's an undeniable tradition of sexism in this country that ties into the move westward by people of European descent and different ways of looking at Manifest Destiny on the west side of the Mississippi River.
How do you play someone in a movie? How do you do that? It's impossible - unless you know how. How do you cut somebody open and take out their appendix and sew them back up and watch them get well? That's impossible - unless you know how.
If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.
My grandmother grew up in a 19th-century world, and my daughter has grown up in a 21st-century world, and some issues, problems, dilemmas that these women face have not changed.
I don't think I would describe my sense of humor. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd do.
The quality of one's emotional life changes over the years, doesn't it? But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In the larger scope of things, there's a sense of fulfillment to living a creative life. So I guess that's what keeps me going.
In the political world, the only position I have is voter. I'm not a spokesman for anything.
I'm always happy to have a job.
I've never really known what glamour is.
I haven't had a lot of comedy come my way as a performer.
No director wants to be directed, but no good director... would shy away from the good ideas of others.
I don't need much of a character in my life. I've already got one; my family knows who I am, and I don't have a reason to make an impression on the world around me unless it's in a professional context. Acting is not a personal experience; it's a job.
The world's not a very comfortable place if you have a nightmare to face.
Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.
My home town is very small and very remote and we don't have a movie house.
If you don't hurt anybody or try to steal anything, you'll be fine in the South.
Normal people with normal problems can be hilarious.
You can't instruct an audience to laugh, but what you can do is read well and understand the spirit and subtleties, if there are any, in the dialogue.
Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.
I've made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!
As an actor to watch an audience of people howl together in a single mind as a result of work you've done together with friends is a privilege.
I always told my children when they whined... Only the boring are bored.
I know a lot of cowboys and I've done a little work on ranches with cattle, and those people become your friends, and keep their word.
Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.
I don't have a favorite genre. I think 'genre' is a literary term. I don't have a favorite kind or type of movie. I like the ones that are good.
No, I don't think about the myth of the West. It's not the kind of thinking I do. That's more suited to people who live in big towns on the West Coast or East Coast, people who stay under a roof, in a room, all the time.
The entire elementary school in Rotan, Texas, presented a theatrical production of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.' And the part of Sneezy fell to me.
I have nothing against interviews. I don't pursue them. When people I work for deem it appropriate, I'm perfectly willing to serve.
The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is 'When is lunch?'
As it turns out, my grandmother, my mother, my wife, and my daughter are all women, and I like those people. I'm concerned about the issues that they face in their lives. So I'm a feminist, but that's not all I am.
Al Gore has been one of my closest friends since the day we met, on the first day of college, 35 years ago.
I've worked with more than 50 directors ,and I've paid attention since day one. That's pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I've seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving. You just leave the bad part out.
I personally don't live a nihilistic life, I don't have any use for it.
I love cinema.
I think that no matter how much you don't like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it.
I don't analyze things like titles.
You are going to grow up whether you want to or not. It requires no effort.
I look upon pride as a sin.
I play characters, and I try to play them in a manner that's appropriate to the script. Physical movement and vitality of language is part of character.
You know, I don't really think you have to play nice guys.
I don't fight anybody anytime or anywhere.
If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.
I don't play just villains. I like to have parts that are not simply villains.
