Top 44 Tommy Lee Jones Quotes

I still think probably the only thing I’m suited for is being a boy from Texas.

You should never ask a horse or an actor to do something they cannot do. Wisdom will teach you to find out what they can do and then make it easy for them.

I don’t do anything that is not fun. I just don’t do it.

I’ve never really known what glamour is.

I haven’t had a lot of comedy come my way as a performer.

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.

Normal people with normal problems can be hilarious.

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.

You know, I don’t really think you have to play nice guys.

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.

Acting is fun for me and it doesn’t really matter how, whether it’s hard work or easy work, it’s always fun.

Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.

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.

I have nothing against interviews. I don’t pursue them. When people I work for deem it appropriate, I’m perfectly willing to serve.

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.

Football was a wonderful experience for me. It was a means of, oh, I don’t know, sustaining for much of my youth. In times of trouble, I’ve always had football. I always knew I was a football player. And that was a comfort on many occasions.

What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.

I want to photograph what I see and put it in a dramatic context. I’m an actor and a writer, and I want to tell these stories and present these shapes, colors and movements as I see them, as I see them serve a narrative. As I see that narrative serve an audience. That’s what I want to do.

Cormac McCarthy’s language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.

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.

Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They’re underused.

I love cinema.

I look upon pride as a sin.

As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.

I like to make movies on the west side of the Mississippi River, and a lot of times, the movies I direct have horses and big hats in them and get called westerns, but that’s okay. I used to resent that, but I don’t anymore.

I probably watch less than one hour of television a week. And when I do watch television, it’s usually a football game. Sometimes I’ll watch a news broadcast for a few minutes. Otherwise, I don’t have time.

Human beings are glorious and preposterous characters.

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.

I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I’ve worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.

I’ve made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!

It’s no fun to be a struggling young actor. It’s a desperate thing, no way to be happy. If you have any alternative, you should take it.

I personally don’t live a nihilistic life, I don’t have any use for it.

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.

I’m always happy to have a job.

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.

As an actor I want to do as many takes as I can. I wanna shoot the scene… or shoot the shot ’til they make me quit.

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’m an introspective guy when there’s money in it.

No director wants to be directed, but no good director… would shy away from the good ideas of others.

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 think any thinking person should be worried about climate change.

If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.

It’s no mean calling to bring fun into the afternoons of large numbers of people. That, too, is part of my job, and I’m happy to serve when called on.