Kevin Costner Quotes

Failure doesn't kill you ... it increases your desire to make something happen.

Sex and golf are the two things you can enjoy even if you're not good at them.

I actually play sports better when I'm mad. Some players don't play better when they're mad. They lose their sense of where they're at. I have a tendency to do better when I'm under pressure.

There's a moment in time where kids really don't want to hear anything from their parents.

I have instinctually thought I could do things in my life, and I followed that up by sometimes putting everything I have at risk - my money, my house - to make a movie.

I haven't tried to buffer myself. I like rolling the dice.

I don't think I ever take huge risks, though I'm not scared of doing so.

I deal with pressure. I have a tendency to probably be at my best under pressure.

I have seen soldiers panic at the first sight of battle, and a squire pulling arrows from his body to fight and save his dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright, but is defined by one's actions.

It's nice to be wanted. That's a really good feeling. I'm not immune to it.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

I've been able to do a lot of things in the movies. I've been able to run with the buffalo, you know. I've been able to pitch a perfect game in Yankee Stadium. I've been in the bathtub with Susan Sarandon. I've had a lot of chances to do a lot of things. I enjoy sports, but I enjoy sports so much to the point that I wouldn't do the movie unless I thought it had a chance to be good.

I don't give up. I'm a plodder. People come and go, but I stay the course.

I've been around where I knew other actors were going to steal the scene, and I don't compete with them.

You can be as you choose to be. It's an act of discipline sometimes, but it can be done.

I don't read as much as I'd like. I've been writing a lot. I've been doing a lot of music, but I don't read as much as I should. I just don't.

Audiences trust Westerns when you hit the right tone. I think they're not in vogue, but they will always be in vogue when you hit the right note.

A good idea is something like an emotion, you just can't keep it in.

You have to pick the stories that you want to be involved with and the end game is you'd like to be a part of a hit. But I think your moral obligation is to follow your own heart.

There are a lot of things that come to bear on movies now that I don't think are good for movies. They're trying to appeal to the biggest demographic and, when they do that, you sometimes flatten out.

I have a tremendous belief in people, not that people don't let me down, not that I haven't maybe let some people down. But I have a tremendous belief in people and in the common experience.

If you think of 'Liberty Valance' or 'The Searchers,' there are moments in there that you'll never, ever forget ... And it does not matter what century you are from.

What is it you want? That's a question that we all get posed sometimes internally and sometimes externally.

I can't say I really see much difference between my son and daughters except that my girls will occasionally make me a sandwich and my son won't.

If you're willing to tell somebody that you love them, are you also willing to say you're sorry? You need to, even when you think you're in the right.

When you try to portray people's lives, you try to make sure you don't portray them as clowns and that you give them a level of dignity. You don't try to change their persona, but you try to understand that they had unique problems, set in a century that you don't live.

Lincoln was the greatest speaker and he was ridiculed for how he looked, you know?

When I do a Western, I often wonder what I would have really done in that situation.

I like American history.

I've had some movies that have been ridiculed, but that's OK with me. I don't feel that really defines me. Should I change who I am to be popular?

I'm a pretty convenient foil for a lot of people.

If you want to make a great sports movie, don't put too much sports in it. It's the backdrop. It's the environment.

It sounds vain, but I could probably make a difference for almost everyone I ever met if I chose to involve myself with them either professionally or personally.

You're just as good, and if you work harder, you can be better and you can be more than you think you can.

You just do the things that you love and see if other people can like them too.

I've had moments in my life where it was all out on the table. Everything I had. I'm okay with that, because I had a strong belief that what I was doing other people could believe in it, too, if I can get it just right.

I dream of big things. I work for the small things. If you're going to dream, you might as well dream big. A lot of that came from my mother. She was adamant about the work ethic
about how you can't just dream things.

I want to be a part of something, and when we define movies now based on how they do on the weekend. We live in a society of "thumbs up, thumbs down."

I haven't had a perfect life ... but I have had a perfectly good life!

I think I just wanted to work when I finally came to Hollywood. That's what it was. I wanted to get a job, and then I wanted to get the second one.

I think there are good men and women in all decades. We've grown cynical. And look at what we do to all our heroes: Churchill, FDR, Kennedy, they all had affairs. But heroic things happen every day.

I'm a 'what if' person. I have always felt that failure was a completely underrated experience. I have taken blows. I have had high moments. But I don't think the blows have ever hardened me. My enthusiasms are still big.

President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation, but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.

I stand up for what I believe. I don't know if it's always paid off for me, because I've been ridiculed and humiliated.

I wait and take on projects that I think can work.

I was in the show for 21 days once-the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains.

We all have to have our north star that we fix on and go to, but life is so much about the things that bump into you.

I've been evolving in my stunt career Stunts have always had their place, and I have to measure them now. I've done things where, if I make a mistake, I could die. You really need to look at each thing. That usually is a mechanical failure. So, I have gone from doing everything, to listening and saying, "Maybe I shouldn't do this."

Here's the thing - the accent is cool. It's like a girl with big breasts - they get your attention first.

Sometimes it takes a partner to say, "What is it you want?" because I think we operate in life and sometimes we don't know. We're all in some kind of maze going after the cheese at the end, and we get it and we go, "What is it that we want?"

I always thought the leading actor should be the best supporting actor, because you're the only person that can help every other actor on the set.

I think some people who lead special lives, have somehow made this weird jump that they're better because of it. When you see that, its ugly. Being humble is pretty sexy. Being humble is a pretty great quality. Living in humility is a good way to live.

There's nothing more noble than a father and mother making an opportunity for their child, knowing that their life is gonna be hard. There's something incredibly heroic about that.

We all have that burning question about what happens if we lose somebody we love, especially if we lose them tragically. We wonder what fear was going on, we wonder if we could have reached out and touched them, held their hand, looked in their eyes, been there.

Field of Dreams is probably our generation's It's A Wonderful Life.

I didn't realize Toronto was so beautiful. Everywhere you go you see beautiful architecture.

If I had a choice of having a woman in my arms or shooting a bad guy on a horse, I'd take the horse. It's a lot more fun

I've always felt that failure was a completely underrated experience.

I'm getting those familiar feelings, and I'm just going to enjoy the process of getting to know someone again.

I don't have a seller's remorse about how I've lived.

There's actually a big difference between story and character. A great story doesn't make a great movie. A great script, which defines its moments and characters can become a great movie. You can make a movie that makes a lot of money and it may or may not have great story or great characters.

I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does.

I enjoy sports. I get a real joy from playing sports but I don't look for those movies. Oliver Stone wanted to know if I would do Any Given Sunday and it just didn't appeal to me.

Some people come to you because if you're in their movie, it'll help them raise money. And some people come to you because they think you're the person to play the part.

I like when my face tingles, when the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

What are we blaming? Is this Vietnam? We made a movie, it didn't make much money. I'm gonna be really happy if somebody watches it in 10 years' time and really enjoys it.

I think one of the first things to go as people's lives start to go down is their dreams. Dreams should be the last thing to go - dreams are the things you go down with. If you're left clinging to a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean, I'd put on it the word dreams.

When I read Thirteen Days I was moved by it. It was just a great time for the world, in terms of looking back in history and seeing how we got ourselves into trouble and how we got ourselves out of trouble.

It's such a cool thing in life to get what it is you want. Most of the time we don't, but occasionally we do.

I want to live forever, and I know I won't. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm only afraid of one thing: not being able to raise my kids.

When I played Robin Hood, I knew the great role was Alan Rickman's and it didn't bother me. I always think that leading actors should be called the best supporting actors.

I just tried to build on my failures.

Money isn't a major motivating force in my life. Nor is my profession. There are other things that I care more about than being an actor.

We really don't rest if we think our kids are drifting, or if we think they don't have the right work ethic. It drives us crazy. Because we ultimately want them to succeed and, until they do, we feel in some way that something is not complete.

If it's fifty years from now and it still has the same value, that's a movie.

I like four-hour movies.

I feel like I've been able to live a dream life, but my view of things is absolutely inside behavior about how I behave and how I count on other people behaving.

I've always known that I'm a little out of vogue.

We recognize ourselves in Westerns, ... I believe the Western can orchestrate moments around reality. The reality can be as entertaining to us as the lie.

I think there's true drama in the formation of everything that we know and are standing on the shoulders of.

You're this rat in the American maze, working your way towards the cheese, which is a job.

It's never bothered me to work hard. I've probably worked on some of the longest schedules in movie history.

We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.

I split my time between Santa Barbara and Aspen. I live on a pretty fast horse.

Great stories don't often make great movies. Its' a crafted art form.

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.

I'd like to put on buckskins and a ponytail and go underwater with a reed, hiding from the Indians ... To me, that's sexy!

In my younger days, I used to pick up sluts, and I don't mean that nastily. It's more a term of endearment, really, for girls who know how to speak their minds.