Jeff Bridges Quotes

It's a wonderful metaphor, catching a wave, for how you can look at other challenges in your life.

One of my favorite artists is Tom Waits, whom most people think of as a wonderful singer-songwriter and a great poet. I certainly think of him that way, but I also know him as a terrific actor. You know, that persona that he puts on when he's doing his music comes from being an actor, figuring out a persona.

Like most kids, you don't want to do what your folks want you to do. You've got your own thing.

There's kind of a Zen aspect to bowling. The pins are either staying up or down before you even throw your arm back. It's kind of a mind-set. You want to be in this perfect mind-set before you released the ball.

You can change things, you can make things better.

If you're like me, I get hooked into to-do lists, you know. I'll say I checked that off. Okay, I did that. And you have all these things you're doing.

For me and my wife, it was love at first sight.

Well that's like, your opinion, man.

What are the aspects of yourself that line up with the character? You magnify those, and the ones that don't match up you kind of kick to the curb.

I can see how a relationship with a writer would be an easy thing.

Nowadays, in the contract that actors sign, you have to agree that you're going to do a certain amount of publicity-the hard part they don't pay you for.

I used to read comics when I was a kid.

I love westerns, I'd love to make more of them.

Eating ice cream and not exercising is great. The downside is your health isn't so good.

As you become famous you lose some of your anonymity, which is wonderful for an actor to have because you can observe people and also people don't have such a strong sense of who you are and that sort of thing.

Tightness gets in the way of everything, except tightness.

We're here for such a short period of time. Live like you're already dead, man. Have a good time. Do your best. Let it all come ripping right through you.

You can relate to somebody's pain and you have compassion, which can lead to intimacy.

Thoughts will change and shift just like the wind and the water when you're on the boat; thoughts are no different than anything else.

This idea of how everything is interconnected, and the impermanence of things.. It sums up the human condition to me, and it helps me on my path.

Mania is a wonderful feeling.

I think my love of journalizing my life comes from my mom.

It's like that perfection thing, trying to be that thing you're not. You have to feel that discomfort and not try to get rid of it. Accept that aspect and get into it. Acknowledge those feelings and let them be. You are who you are.

I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see, and then ... one day ... I got in!

One thing I want to do is create something called Ring Around Congress. It would be a state deal and also a national thing, where the kids, as a field trip, will go and join hands around Congress and give the politicians report cards on how they're voting on hunger issues.

As far as the lack of hits goes, I think perhaps it's because I've played a lot of different roles and have not created a persona that the public can latch on to. I have played everything from psychopathic killers to romantic leading men, and in picking such diverse roles I have avoided typecasting.

One of the things I want to do that's outside the realm of acting and the arts - although both have their place in this - is ending childhood hunger here in America.

I love marriage.

I used to be somebody. Now I'm somebody else.

For me, growing up, the downside of it was that as a kid you don't want to stand out. You don't want to have a famous father let alone get a job because of your famous father, you know? But I'm a product of nepotism. That's how I got my foot in the door, through my dad.

We love things that are convenient.

I don't have too much time to jam with the rest of Hollywood.

I have a cycle that is not particularly cool, but it's a cycle: trash myself to reward myself.

You've got to take care of yourself on the path, not just when you cross the goal line, because don't forget, wherever you are, that's the goal line.

I first got involved with ending world hunger, and I got hip to the facts about it - what a huge problem it was and how it wasn't a matter of not having food or not knowing how to end it, but it was a matter of creating the political will.

Every time I walk down one of those red carpets, you think I'd be used to it after all these years, but it's like it's happening for the first time.

You always hear people say that having kids changes everything, but you can't fully realize it until you have children yourself.

I gotta take notes when things occur to me.

I've produced a couple of films and really enjoyed starting it from the very beginning and seeing it all the way through to the end; that was very gratifying.

I'm not counting any chickens.

Movies are very subjective.

Working with my dad was such a gas. We approached the work in a similar way. We only made two films together when I was an adult, Tucker, and Blown Away, but it was so much fun to play with your parent like that.

You just have to work with your discomfort. It's challenging, but you have to dance the dance that the band's playing. You can't say: "I came here to Cha Cha and they're playing a Waltz, godammit!"

When you're a professional you gotta do it [your job] when you don't feel like doing it.

Memories are not just about the past. They determine our future.

In life and in movies, it's a similar challenge, where you have expectations, and you end up in situations that are not meeting your expectations.

If you're going to wait to get all the information you think you need before you act, you'll never act because there's an infinite amount of information out there.

I love seeing somebody act real earnest and serious, like Jackie Gleason. He makes me laugh because he reflects back to me my own serious-mindedness and how ridiculous it all is. It's always easier to see somebody else in that position than yourself, and you laugh. It's like the classic slipping on the banana peel, or someone getting hit by a pie in the face. Why do those things make us laugh? Is it from relief, like: Thank God it wasn't me? Or is it something else: I'm being very serious now. I'm pontificating earnestly and solemnly about - POW! PIE IN THE FACE! The bust-up of certainty.

To go into therapy is an adventure, not really to iron anything out.

You don't really have to do the things that your character is doing. But us actors, we use something called sense memory. I've certainly been drunk before, and part of my job is to recall that without getting drunk.

Directing takes a lot of time.

As a kid, you want to be liked for who you are. You don't want to be liked for who your parents are. You don't want to get a job because of who your parents are. You want to do it on your own, with your own gifts and your own value. So, I decided to spare my kids that and not be as pro-active as my dad was.

Often when I finish a film I'll have that feeling inside me: 'I never want to do this ever again. I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to be myself and do that.' And then, thank God, that feeling goes away after a month or so and I'm raring to go again.

Poverty is a very complicated issue, but feeding a child isn't.

Any role that big is going to be a challenge for any actor, but for an actor of a young age, it's going to be even tougher.

35 million people in the U.S. are hungry or don't know where their next meal is coming from, and 13 million of them are children. If another country were doing this to our children, we'd be at war.

I had years of partying, and I was kind of surprised and happy I survived it all. Now, being a parent, I look back on it thinking, Oh God, the things you did!

My wife holds the kite strings that let me go 'weeeeeee', then she reels me back in.

Words fall short sometimes.

Sticking with a marriage. That's true grit, man.

Everyone I meet is in my sangha. I don't know if that's the proper definition, but that's the way I'm going to hold it in my mind.

I'm at this time in life when I have to take the opportunities I have left.

I don't even know what Instagram is, All of this high-tech stuff is supposed to set us free and make life easier. To me, it makes it more difficult and demanding.

You don't want to vilify your ego.

As far as Beau is concerned, we're on the same team, we root for each other. If my parts are slightly more attractive, or are perceived that way by others, he's very content.

If you're married you'll have tough times.

I'm kind of an idea guy.

You know, ballet might be too formal of a title for the type of dance I do, but I love to dance.

You liked the freshness of it, c'mon try it" and I said "oh God, I read it three of four times" and finally I said "all right, I want you guys to organize a reading and I want you to be there to see how terrible this is not going to work at all", so we had a table like this, and read the script, and it was just great.

I'm very much into the costuming of any character that I portray and it's one of the great things about making movies is it's a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about for this instance your character's costume and what that might tell about your character.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I do a lot of ceramics.

I'd done about 10 movies before I decided I wanted to make acting the main thrust of my career.

I love John Irving's stuff. It's that marriage of comedy and tragedy. It's really terrific.

One of the things that I find so exciting about life is that you're constantly surprised. You never know what's going to happen, and it's certainly like that making movies; every once in a while, one will come along that transcends all of your expectations.

I found that photography was a great way of relaxing on the set.

Sobriety and health is the greatest thing.

My brother's my teacher, my mentor, and we both learnt all the acting basics from our father.

I never read reviews of something I want to see.

Technology is such a broad kind of term, it really applies to so many things, from the electric light to running cars on oil. All of these different things can be called technology. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with it, as I expect most people do. With the computer, I spend so many hours sitting in front of a computer.

I just hope that theaters remain. I think there's something very wonderful about getting into a dark room with a bunch of people. There's something cool about that. Brings us all together in one room where we can experience all those emotions.

Yeah I loved, as a kid growing up, I loved science-fiction.

The more space and emptiness you can create in yourself, then you can let the rest of the world come in and fill you up.

I have hesitation making any kind of decision, really in my life. I'm really slow at it.

I'm not real good at romance.

One in four kids in the U.S. faces hunger.

I've gone out of my way to not take baggage with me from film to film.

Basically, one of the hardest things about being an actor is getting your first break. I'm a product of nepotism. The doors were open to me. I'd done several movies before I decided what I wanted to do.

I think there's a real joy in going to see movies when you discover them yourself.

A fella who accepts himself and is relaxed into who he is - that appeals to people.

If you change partners every time it gets tough or you get a little dissatisfied, then I don't think you get the richness that's available in a long-term relationship.

I look back at my filmography, and I'm pretty jazzed with the stuff I've been part of. They're all movies I'd like to see.

You know, it's kind of a shame in a way but the more seasoned directors a lot of times have more difficult getting a job than first time guys. New kid on the block kind of thing.

Whenever you're the child of a famous person, you get judged in odd ways because of that.

My wife, whenever I'd go off to work and I'd be kind of anxious, she'll say, 'Remember, have fun.' Oh, I forgot, thanks for the reminder. Because sometimes we do forget. We take it all too seriously and there's a lot of joy to be had wherever you are.

What I learned most from my father wasn't anything he said; it was just the way he behaved. He loved his work so much that, whenever he came on set, he brought that with him, and other people rose to it.

Kevin Bacon and I recently worked on a move together, R.I.P.D. Just before we'd begin a scene, when all of us would feel the normal anxiety that actors feel be- fore they start to perform, Kevin would look at me and the other actors with a very serious expression on his face and say: "Remember, everything depends on this!" It would make us all laugh. On the one hand, it's not true of course, but on the other, everything does depend on this, on just this moment and our attitude toward this moment.

Making a film, it uses a certain ... 'pretend-muscle,' I don't know what you want to call it. It exhausts something in me, I find. It has to be really something to get me interested.

When you start to engage with your creative processes, it shakes up all your impulses, and they all kind of inform one another.

Normally, we push away the things we're scared of.