Top 40 Val Kilmer Quotes

I am not an American; I am the American.

You can ask anyone who knows me, I’ve never said a racist or prejudiced thing in my life.

Mark Twain had a way of telling stories that shifts your consciousness away from labels.

News isn’t even the truth on television.

A lot of old guys in movies are like cowboys – they talk like cowboys and they dress like cowboys.

I love that Bob Dylan asked me to be in the first movie he wrote.

It’s fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren’t actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n’ roll. I’ve listened to ‘Ziggy Stardust’ as much as any rock n’ roll fan – I don’t really know what it’s about, but it sure is fun to think about David Bowie as this mad creation.

Hollywood’s like a warehouse. It’s just a place that you go. What’s interesting in the warehouse has to do with the creative people.

If you think that by threatening me you can get me to do what you want… well, that’s where you’re right. But – and I am only saying this because I care – there’s a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.

My children have absolutely no interest in my fame. They’re very sophisticated, and they have a spiritual perspective on material things because we go to church.

The Secret Service is a strange group. They don’t really have a leader. It’s not set up like a military. Each one is supposed to be able to act like a leader when something comes up.

We take what’s shown on television as the truth, and it isn’t. News isn’t even the truth on television. If you look up the definition of what news is, it isn’t that what we’re watching on the new – it’s entertainment.

I just don’t think I’ve ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity.

I respect people who can do both careers, like Will Smith and a couple of other people who have done it, but I just don’t know when they sleep.

Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic.

I’m a character actor, but I look like a leading man.

I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I’ve played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters.

I would probably do anything with David Mamet. He’s so great. I just love his writing.

I don’t think of my life as a cliche, but I’m a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name – I mean, who’s named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?

Hollywood is wonderful, but it does eat its young.

There was no one around called ‘Val’ when I was young, so I wanted to be John or Bill. Now I like it.

Jim Thompson understood something about the serial killer before the psychology caught up to it, which is that they are detached to it and they do want to get caught.

Most films made about the future acquiesce toward death, and I don’t want to be told how to define my future.

If you’re in a hit movie, it’s good to be in another hit movie straight away.

Unless a Western’s made money – doesn’t matter who made the money, doesn’t matter what the subject is – if the last one didn’t make any money, you can’t make another one for a four-year period. Westerns more than any genre.

There are a thousand ways to play any role.

With legitimate journalists I’ve always had a great time – I’ve never gone out of my way to court the press. That’s probably cost me some money, but I’ve always had the respect of my peers.

Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things.

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is.

There’s nothing good about divorce.

I think death is just a transition to another state of consciousness.

It’s fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren’t actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n’ roll.

It’s the persona that makes you a leading actor. A leading actor has something extra that’s fun to watch. But it isn’t usually about acting.

Daryl Hannah likes to goof around with fashion, but she does have pretty impeccable taste.

I sang the songs in ‘The Doors’.

I don’t watch television, but I saw ‘The Office’ by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We’d do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I’m sitting there watching hours of it.

Youth is seen as everything. You don’t know anything when you’re young. It’s great being older, just having a more balanced perspective. I wake up and realise that what seemed to be important last year no longer is. I’m increasingly grateful for every day.

Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don’t have to declare war. You’re just at war and we did that, which is not legal.

I’ve been very fortunate and met the guys that have become, basically, philosophers and have a kind of sensibility about life that’s very precious.

One out of 100 citizens of the U.S. is going to prison, and it’s not that the system is making criminals, it’s that it’s making criminals better criminals. We’re breeding them like rats and it has to change.