Food is a lot of people’s therapy – when we say comfort food, we really mean that. It’s releasing dopamine and serotonin in your brain that makes you feel good.
’25th Hour,’ like a lot of my films, takes place in New York City. I’ve been very fortunate to make films in the city that I live. I mean, it’s great going home at night instead of being on location.
I make a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean.
I mean, they call it Stockholm Syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. And, you know, I had no free will. I had virtually no free will until I was separated from them for about two weeks.
This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can… reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’
Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in the mean, and moderation is virtue. Every abiding place outside the bounds of moderation is only exile to the wise man.
Grief is like a moving river, so that’s what I mean by it’s always changing. It’s a strange thing to say because I’m at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It’s just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone.
I know that millions of Americans from all walks of life agree with me that leadership does not mean putting the ear to the ground to follow public opinion, but to have the vision of what is necessary and the courage to make it possible.
I prefer ordinary girls – you know, college students, waitresses, that sort of thing. Most of the girls I go out with are just good friends. Just because I go out to the cinema with a girl, it doesn’t mean we are dating.
Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.
I don’t care if someone makes fun of me, but if someone calls me a mean person or something, I reply. If you don’t like me in makeup, that’s OK. But I would like people to like me as a person.
Whenever anyone says, ‘theoretically,’ they really mean, ‘not really.’
I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.
Well, I’m Italian, but my family isn’t stereotypical. I mean, I only have one sister and we don’t yell or throw pasta at each other. My mother doesn’t even have a secret spaghetti sauce recipe.
When I say things that sound insane, like only the smartest million people should have the right to vote, well, I mean that.
We are reminded how short life really is, and how we are just passing through. So, all the people you haven’t told you love lately, tell them, and live your days like you mean it.
In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?
I’ve never done work for money ever. If your choices are based on grosses and the film doesn’t do well, what does that mean? It leaves you with nothing.
Small things sometimes mean a whole lot!
When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.
Things that came before, people and things and experiences – that does mean something to me. It doesn’t mean I don’t embrace the new, but I don’t forget the past, either.
There’s a Biblical mandate to reach out to those who are the orphans, the widows in their distress, to take care of the stranger in your land. But that does not mean citizenship.
When I say artist I mean the man who is building things – creating molding the earth – whether it be the plains of the west – or the iron ore of Penn. It’s all a big game of construction – some with a brush – some with a shovel – some choose a pen.
I mean if anyone’s comfortable being famous, they’re a psychopath.
Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.
We’ve got a thing called the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ in New Zealand, where if anyone is doing really well, it’s quite common to try and bring them down – like, cut them down and say, ‘You’ve been to the moon? So what? I mean, plenty of people have been to the moon.’
I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.
Oh my God, my girlfriends are everything to me. They celebrate with you, they cry with you, they hold you when you need to be held. They laugh with you. They’re mean with you! They’re always there, and it’s just a priceless thing to have.
Age doesn’t mean anything. Age doesn’t mean I can’t work as hard. Age doesn’t mean I can’t do as well as everyone else. It’s just a factor. It’s just there.
Just because you’re married doesn’t mean that you have to spend 24/7 together and can’t have separate interests and hobbies. In a healthy relationship, you both understand – and respect – that you need time apart doing what you want to do.
I think success is when the way you talk about who you want to be and what you want to do lines up with who you are and what you do. I guess, by that, I mean I think success is practicing what you preach.
But it’s a strange thing when people judge you because you’re not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in ‘The Dukes of Hazzard?’ I mean, hello?
If my ship sails from sight, it doesn’t mean my journey ends, it simply means the river bends.
I don’t think life is about a pace, living slow or fast. I think you just live, y’know what I mean?
Strong government doesn’t mean simply military power or an efficient intelligence apparatus. Instead, it should mean effective, fair administration – in other words, ‘good governance.’
I don’t care what people think of me, unless they think I’m mean or something, but I don’t care if they think I’m like someone else because I know I’m not – I’m a total weirdo. I’m not selling a dream; I’m not selling fame like it is some sort of fantastic thing. I’m just trying to sell music and get on with my real life.
I don’t want to be mean to people. I try to be as nice as possible to everyone.
I’ve achieved more than some people do in a lifetime, but it doesn’t mean I’ve done it all.
Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the left, so people expected of him a kind of ‘Les Miserables,’ in which the underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not – and was not interested in – telling a lie.
Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.
Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.
I don’t mean to be funny.
I don’t like traffic cameras. In fact, I hate them. But that doesn’t mean I can break the speed limit and run red lights to get to a New Orleans Saints game.
We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure.
If you’re gay, that doesn’t mean I want to discriminate against you, belittle or bully you, abuse or offend you. Not at all. I don’t want to go back to the dark days of criminalisation and the imprisonment of gay men and women; of Section 28 and legalised discrimination.
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
I don’t mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn’t criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it’s a balance. And our job as actors is empathy.
It is not infrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty – to oppress without control, or the restraint of laws, all who are poorer and weaker than themselves.
The station put us on staff at $35 a week… and I mean every week.
I can’t tell you the number of people that are like, ‘Has anyone ever told you you look like a blonde Liv Tyler?’ And at this point, I’m like, ‘Yes… yes, I’ve been told that.’ I mean, she’s beautiful. It’s not like I’m not totally flattered by it, but then again, I think I look like myself.
I really think that I don’t mind people sleeping during my films, because I know that some very good films might prepare you for sleeping or falling asleep or snoozing. It’s not to be taken badly at all. This is something I really mean.
