Top 40 William Hurt Quotes

I live in the county where my mother was born and buried.

But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.

When you are a kid, you are beset by fears, and you think, ‘I’ll solve the fear by living forever and becoming a movie star.’

You cut off the capacity for grief in your life, and you cut off the joy at the same time. They both come up through the same tunnel. You don’t have one without the other.

I don’t want my children to have to wade through the crap to get to the cream, you know. I want them to be aware that I struggled to live with and tell my truth, and that it was a decent thing.

I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision.

People who have expertise or the luck to have rehearsal time with cameras have it over people who don’t.

I don’t put the truth in a cage. I try to find a way to release it.

I don’t have any artifacts of my profession in my house; the Oscar is in storage.

All I know is that my best work has come out of being committed and happy.

What’s really frustrating with movies is the lack of improvement.

The irony is that the more specific you are in the portrayal of character, the more like other people you are. In the same way, the more you think about how alone you are in this life, you realise how much a brother and sister everyone else is.

I’ve made a couple of films that were a little too wide and non-specific – like ‘The Doctor.’

I have a film I want to direct. Gena Rowlands was going to do it with me a long time ago. It’s about an older woman who’s running a ranch in the west the old fashioned way.

The perfection in theater is that it’s over the second it’s done.

I like to work. I’m glad; I’m privileged to have work.

I had great qualms about playing a man who was living. I’ve never met Walt McCandless, and I never will.

We get so intellectual that we forget that we’re physical creatures.

I’m not going to party. I’m going to go do something that will make me break a sweat.

The thrill of acting is the discovery part, so it all changes, but it has to change in a way that fits what is written. You can’t just wander off and get interested in your own tangent.

Rage with panache.

I haven’t planned a reaction on anything… If you do, you’ve screwed up.

It just seems like that because I do a lot of independent films that don’t get to the mainstream.

You can only sit on the frustration of wanting to express something for so long.

Post-adolescence reaches usually into the late 30s.

Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you’re just trying to get in and you’re given so little time to get in gently, but it’s always hard.

We’d like to prearrange our life on all levels. We’d prefer it to be scripted. But it’s not.

I didn’t study interviews. I studied acting.

The achievement is appreciation. Your ability to be surprised and awed by beauty!

I am not a famous person at home – I’m just a guy here. I’m a father, I’m a companion, I’m a human being. I am not a public figure in my house; I am not a celebrity. I am not a famous person to myself – I am just a guy.

Being a father, being a friend, those are the things that make me feel successful.

Every single second of extra time to work with other actors has definitely always, for me, paid off for the film. For the project. Every single extra heartbeat you could get, mutually considering the scene, was of benefit.

I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations.

I generally try to think of what it is I want to express and then find a way of expressing it.

I am constantly asked, ‘What’s the difference between acting in the theater and acting in film?’ The only answer I can give is the space – you adapt to the space. But acting is acting.

I’m not there to tailor the role to me: I’m there to tailor me to the role. That guarantees me something, a precious thing, which is creativity. I’m guaranteed that I will have a creative experience, because I will go to it, not demand that it comes to me.

The funnel of deep feeling and profound satisfaction in life comes from the capacity to feel.

I’m coming from the notion that acting is an art. It is not a business. It is about building characters, not about selling personalities.

I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people.

I was very lucky when I was a kid – I travelled a lot and spent a lot of time in Africa, Asia and Europe. I also chant in Sanskrit.