Top 60 Matthew McConaughey Quotes

One of the great pleasures of going to see a Daniel Day-Lewis film: you haven’t seen him in five years. Where have you been? So, it’s a special event, right? Well, if you want to go see a movie that I’m in, it still may be a special event for you, but, you don’t feel like you don’t know where I’ve been.

My last name is originally Irish. I’m not exactly sure whereabouts it’s from, but I’ve got family branches that were traced back there.

What the heck is true love? I remember feeling, back when I was 12 and ‘going’ with this girl, ‘Is this true love?’

For me, one of the toughest things about Valentine’s Day is that it gets geared up as the day to profess your love. See, T-E-S-T – that’s a bad word that doesn’t go with L-O-V-E.

Whether I’m running on the beach without my shirt or whether I’m going out with my kids or going to church or going out to dinner – I don’t choose to insulate myself in engaging in real life. Hence, the public kind of almost knows me as much through my real life that they see through the rag mags.

I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

My rule is to break one sweat a day.

I like quips. I like whiffs of cynicism and I think they can be witty. But I don’t really know where wittiness is constructive.

Cameras aren’t guns. They can’t really hurt you.

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

When someone bestows something on you, no matter how true it is, when someone says, ‘Sexiest Man Alive,’ I’m honestly going, ‘Thank you. Right on.’ For me, it’s never canceled out anything, it’s never made me go, ‘Does this make me less talented of an actor?’

When I first starting making money, when I first made my first six-digits, I was – my big thing was I went to put super unleaded in my truck for the first time.

There are certain nights you and your image just aren’t in the same bed.

There are a whole bunch of roles where people say, ‘Oh, you’re playing yourself.’ I guess it’s kind of a compliment. Or people say, ‘Oh, man, you just roll out of bed and do that.’ The work is to make it look effortless. That’s the hard part.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

I don’t dabble and spend much mind or time dealing with, I don’t know, people’s perceptions of me. I truly don’t.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

If you want your hair to be thicker, cut it when the moon is about to be full – a heavy, full, waxing moon. Do not cut it when the moon’s waning.

I love good film, whether it’s an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren’t necessarily eccentric ones but they’re the more specific ones.

A creep is someone who claims he’s one thing but he’s actually another.

The challenge for me as an actor is if you become a celebrity, you don’t meet strangers anymore. And strangers are where we have our anonymity. And I believe it’s essential for the soul to be anonymous, especially if you’re going to be an actor.

I’m a football fan, a sports fan, a fan of competition.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

When I’m surfing, I’m sure not thinking about the paparazzi. I guess if they start getting on floaties and coming out there in the water, then I might be a little upset.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

I’ve done films where we don’t rehearse, and I’ve done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.

I like a good pair of jeans, but I also like putting on a nice tux. I’d rather go around in a good pair of jeans that you don’t wash every day, because they get more and more comfortable.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

I love Los Angeles, and it’s been very good to me, but if everyone is running around telling the stories, who’s living them? You don’t play characters that are celebrities – you play guys who know what to do when their septic tank’s blocked.

Man who invented the hamburger was smart; man who invented the cheeseburger was a genius.

Water’s never clumsy.

I don’t know how to work a room. It’s a real skill.

The unsaid rule for living in a trailer park is: ‘If the door’s shut, don’t come a-knockin.’ But if it’s open and you’re walkin’ by, feel free to say, ‘Hello.’

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

Starting at about, I guess, forever, I’ve always looked forward to getting older. When I was 14, I couldn’t wait to be 16 and get a driver’s license.

To bring a healthy child into this world, raise them right and watch them grow is the biggest miracle there is.

Romcoms are hard in a lot of ways: they’re built to be buoyant. It’s easy to demean them.

Without exercise, I don’t feel like my head works right.

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

I’ve been in a couple of weddings where the coolest people that were the most day before so mellow and then the day of the wedding freaking out.

I was raised on, ‘You go get a nine-to-five job, earn your pay and work your way up.’

I don’t dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it’s gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin’ White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It’s connected to where you are today.

I personally don’t like to go see romantic comedies. But people do want to see them, and they seem to want to see me in them.

We have a big appetite for putting people down but, at the heart of everyone, there’s enough room for all of us to succeed.

There’s two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way.

I think I can keep a rhythm to a beat, but there are quite a few people who would argue with me.

I’ve got a great sense of humor, and if I’m able to say or do something in a movie that people feel like they want to repeat, that’s hugely flattering.

I love having my hands in the dirt. It is never a science and always an art. There are no rules. And if it comes down to me versus that weed I’m trying to pull out of the ground that doesn’t want to come out? I know I’ll win.

When I see grace in a woman, that’s very sexy. You can tell by how someone moves or their rhythm.

I know when I grew up, it was, if it was daylight outside, get outside. Well, now, with the technological age of computers and everything, everyone’s inside virtually going everywhere they want to go, virtually having relationships, virtually traveling across the neighborhood, virtually going to that island.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

It’s not a science when you are judging art, but we’d be remiss to say you can’t look at something and say, ‘This is more well done than that.’

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‘Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.’ I don’t want to be part of that.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

Now, you lose something in your life, or you come into a conflict, and there’s gonna come a time that you’re gonna know: There was a reason for that. And at the end of your life, all the things you thought were periods, they turn out to be commas. There was never a full stop in any of it.