Michael J Fox Quotes

It is ironic that in the same year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, some would have us ban certain forms of DNA medical research. Restricting medical research has very real human consequences, measured in loss of life and tremendous suffering for patients and their families. ~ Michael J. Fox

Humility is always a good thing. It's always a good thing to be humbled by circumstances so you can then come from a sincere place to try to deal with them. ~ Michael J. Fox

I always felt that I came up short in the education department, but I've come to the conclusion that we all get an education. ~ Michael J. Fox

I've never gotten up to see something one of my kids wanted to show me and not been rewarded. ~ Michael J. Fox

My experience is to deal with things through humor. ~ Michael J. Fox

If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today. ~ Michael J. Fox

In fact, Parkinson's has made me a better person. A better husband, father and overall human being. ~ Michael J. Fox

The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky ... I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned. ~ Michael J. Fox

When describing me, Tracy often refers to a well-known concept of physics: 'inertia.' As Newton avers in his first law: 'An object that is not moving will not move until a force acts upon it. An object that is moving will not change its velocity until a net force acts upon it.' In other words, depending on what's happening in my life at any given moment, I can either be the laziest human being on the planet, or the busiest. I'm perfectly content to do absolutely nothing until I'm catalyzed by some person or project, and then I go nonstop until some countervailing force acts upon me, and I revert back to static mode. ~ Michael J. Fox

It never occurred to me that any of these pleasures were a reward for being a pretty good kid, any more than I needed to restructure my life just to avoid an eternity of being spit-roasted on a subterranean barbecue. If this sounds flip, smug, or disrespectful, it's not meant to be. Obviously, there is great wisdom, beauty, and relevance in millennia worth of collected theological teaching from around the world. The question I'm grappling with is: why didn't these big themes and major stick-and-carrot extremes resonate with me? I just never bought into the concept. Maybe I'm part of a small minority, but I don't think so. ~ Michael J. Fox

I find as long as I acknowledge the truth of something, then that's it. I know what it is and then I can operate. But if I overestimate the downside of something or the challenge of something and I get too obsessed about the difficulty of it, then I don't leave enough room to be open to the upside, the possibility. ~ Michael J. Fox

Recovering alcoholics have an expression: "If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today." With all that's happened, it's been liberating to understand that I don't have to carry the weight of all my disappointments or expectations. Sometimes it just is what it is. I can accept that. ~ Michael J. Fox

As with any turning point or instance when a new road is chosen and an old one forsaken, there are consequences. ~ Michael J. Fox

Life is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be
right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once). ~ Michael J. Fox

The 'Rescue Me' gig was a unique opportunity to play a character - a misanthropic, angry guy - who was so contrary to how people think of me. ~ Michael J. Fox

And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance ...
... One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father. ~ Michael J. Fox

I can't be smug, because I know that you can lose anything at any point. And I can't be angry, because I haven't lost it. ~ Michael J. Fox

Do the right thing, and then do the next right thing, and that will lead you to the next right thing after that. ~ Michael J. Fox

Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur. ~ Michael J. Fox

Don't worry about him," Nana would assure them. "Michael will do more in his life than you can ever imagine. ~ Michael J. Fox

I've learned some exciting things - mostly, that people really want to help each other; and that, if you can lay out a vision for them - and that vision is sincere and genuine - they'll get interested. ~ Michael J. Fox

The way I look at life, and the way I look at the reality of Parkinson's, is that sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's funny. I need to look at it that way, and I think other people will look at it that way. ~ Michael J. Fox

They did something once that slurred my speech, and I thought, "Oh, man, you're messing with my brain. It's freaking me out." ~ Michael J. Fox

The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am. ~ Michael J. Fox

There are no moments you have frozen in amber. It's moving, it's changing, so appreciate what's good about right now and be ready for what's next. ~ Michael J. Fox

In terms of what happened over that hiatus that I took, I just rested. I spent that time with my family, during their really formative years, and enjoyed that, and I messed with pills and new medications that help me to deal with dyskinesia and some other things I was struggling with, that I don't have as much now because of medication to counter the side effects. So, it just seemed like the right time to do it. ~ Michael J. Fox

If you want to be an agent of change, it starts with you and what you're made of. ~ Michael J. Fox

This is what my lifelong search for room to maneuver had come to: a box of water in a lightless, windowless nine-by-sixteen-foot room - afraid to leave my artificial womb, to go outside where I could only cause trouble, disappoint my family and myself. Best, I thought, to stay right here where I couldn't fuck anything up. And stay I would, day after day, sometimes three or four times on weekends, for hours at a time, just trying to keep my head below water. Connecticut - Christmas ~ Michael J. Fox

Optimism is a cure for many things. ~ Michael J. Fox

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it. ~ Michael J. Fox

After a year or so I really thought I was Howard Hughes. Here I was at eighteen years old, getting all these checks. ~ Michael J. Fox

There's something about Michael J. Fox that I loved when he did all the '80s stuff. His way of performing all the physicality, which is why it's so tragic now, but the way he used his body so much as well, I loved. ~ James McAvoy

I see possibilities in everything. For everything that's taken away, something of greater value has been given. ~ Michael J. Fox

So I never spend a lot of time analyzing why people respond to my work. But I think that it's just the joy, a passion for life, that I think has always been in my characters. Beyond that, I'm just grateful for it. ~ Michael J. Fox

It is one of the great ironies of my life that only when it became virtually impossible for me to keep my body from moving would I find the peace, security, and spiritual strength to stand in one place. I couldn't be still until I could - literally - no longer keep still. ~ Michael J. Fox

I definitely believe in a higher power. ~ Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox is nice. I'm not in close contact with him. ~ Thomas F. Wilson

Personally, I didn't take a single photograph while I was there, but that's not all that unusual for me. I suppose my aversion to snapping pictures may have something to do with shaky hands and blurry results, but there's another reason: The act of lifting up the camera and positioning it between me and the object of my interest separates me from the experience. ~ Michael J. Fox

I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best. ~ Michael J. Fox

I happen to be a Parkinson's patient. I'm not fearful of my condition or my future - but if someone is looking in my eyes for fear, then they see their own fear reflected back at them. ~ Michael J. Fox

My tattoo is that I don't have a tattoo. ~ Michael J. Fox

If you have doubts about someone, lay on a couple of jokes. If he doesn't find anything funny, your radar should be screaming. Then I would say be patient with people who are negative, because they're really having a hard time. ~ Michael J. Fox

I don't have any affirmations, I don't have any of that stuff. My natural state is to look at things as possibilities and as opportunities. ~ Michael J. Fox

To be associated with a film that just flat-out makes people happy is such a blessing and a tremendous privilege, and I'll always be grateful for it. People's eyes light up when they talk about it. I've been in Asia, Africa, Europe and even Bhutan; people know the movie there. It's just an amazing thing. ~ Michael J. Fox

I urge you to be challenged and inspired by what you do not know. ~ Michael J. Fox

Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in 'A Few Good Men', I CAN handle the truth. ~ Michael J. Fox

When prescribing one of the drugs I take, my doctor warned me of a common side effect: exaggerated, intensely vivid dreams. To be honest, I've never really noticed the difference. I've always dreamt big. ~ Michael J. Fox

When I was 20, I would have taken a bullet in the head to never have to be 35. ~ Michael J. Fox

I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it's proactive and there is positive intent behind it. ~ Michael J. Fox

One of the great things about Parkinson's, in a superficial way, is it relieved me of vanity. I don't worry about what I look like, because it's literally out of my hands. But on a deeper level, it gives you a real humility, because you have to deal every day with the fact that you compromise. ~ Michael J. Fox

I can't always control my body the way I want to, and I can't control when I feel good or when I don't. I can control how clear my mind is. And I can control how willing I am to step up if somebody needs me. ~ Michael J. Fox

I didn't just want to be a poster boy and sign on to publicize somebody else's method of operations. If I was going to put myself out there, I wanted to make sure that it was to an end. So I got involved with this congressional hearing about Parkinson's being underfunded. ~ Michael J. Fox

As much as Parkinson's is about movement, the end stage is being frozen. So the more I let that happen, the more I'm gonna be stuck within that and unable to reverse it. ~ Michael J. Fox

As a kid, I was into music, played guitar in a band. Then I started acting in plays in junior high school and just got lost in the puzzle of acting, the magic of it. I think it was an escape for me. ~ Michael J. Fox

If you don't take the time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? ~ Michael J. Fox

I began to long for the benign indifference of Robert Redford flossing his molars. ~ Michael J. Fox

Explaining how the two of them, up there in the Green Mountains, had managed to dial down life's urgencies and dial up its pleasures and richness, Gary put it beautifully and poetically: "We've discovered a way" he confided with a sense of gleeful wonderment, "to bend time." I imagined Tracy and me engaged in a similar conspiracy a dozen years or so from now. ~ Michael J. Fox

I'm glad I don't have a drinking problem,' I confided, 'because I don't think I'd ever be able to quit. ~ Michael J. Fox

Our challenges don't define us, our actions do, ~ Michael J. Fox

'Why do you think it is ... ', I asked Dr. Cook ... 'that brain surgery, above all else-even rocket science-gets singled out as the most challenging of human feats, the one demanding the utmost of human intelligence?' [Dr. Cook answered,] 'No margin for error.' ~ Michael J. Fox

I have times when I'm off-balance. I have times when I slur my words. I have times when I walk into walls. I have times when I can't remember somebody's name. ~ Michael J. Fox

I mean, I enjoy my work as an actor. But to make a difference in people's lives through advocacy and through supporting research - that's the kind of privilege that few people will get, and it's certainly bigger than being on TV every Thursday for half an hour. ~ Michael J. Fox

Norm MacDonald is here - one of the funniest people ever. Norm's got a giant gambling problem. He's dropped more coin in a casino than Michael J. Fox at a parking meter. ~ Greg Giraldo

I didn't want o do metal work and get my hands all nicked up and be around guys. So I took drama because there were a lot of girls. ~ Michael J. Fox

When something enters your life that is so big and so non-negotiable as catastrophic illness, you either go in denial for a while or ultimately you accept it and you make space for it. And in making space for it, you illuminate a lot of things that you normally don't have room for you simply just look at the world differently. ~ Michael J. Fox

The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It's got five or six people, new show every night, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot. ~ Michael J. Fox

I remember my son wanted to go to bed with his cowboy boots on, and we had this fight for like an hour. Then I realized that the only good reason I had for him not to do it is because I didn't want him to. There was really no other reason. And finally I said, "OK, fine." It was a great victory for me, because I realized it doesn't really matter. ~ Michael J. Fox

Certainly people have a lot tougher situations than I've had to deal with. But I will say we are all dying from the moment we are born. This is not just rehearsal. ~ Michael J. Fox

The American political experience can therefore be viewed as optimism in the collective. ~ Michael J. Fox

I have now is whenever my kids say, "Can you look at this?" or "Can I ask you something?" or "Can you come here for a minute?" no matter what I am doing, I say yes instead of saying, "Just a sec." They never abuse the privilege, and I never once regretted it. What they took me away to do was never less important than what I was doing already. ~ Michael J. Fox

I really love being alive. I love my family and my work. I love the opportunity I have to do things. That's what happiness is. ~ Michael J. Fox

I love the irony. I'm perceived as being really young and yet I have the clinical condition of an old man. ~ Michael J. Fox

No, I got a GED in my 30s. My kids know that I never stop learning, and they know I love reading. I have books overflowing everywhere. I am current on today's events and I read the paper every day, and we talk about it, so they see that appetite. ~ Michael J. Fox

I think the scariest person in the world is the person with no sense of humor. ~ Michael J. Fox

If one of my kids reads a book for school and I can have a conversation with her about the book and I sense that she gets what the book is about, then it doesn't really matter to me if she gets an A on the paper. ~ Michael J. Fox

I don't think [Parkinson's] is Gothic nastiness. There's nothing on the surface that's horrible about someone with a shaky hand. There's nothing horrible about someone in their life saying, "God, I'm really tired of this shaky hand thing" and me saying, "Me, too." That's our reality. We have no control over it. ~ Michael J. Fox

Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to becomes master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. ~ Michael J. Fox

Happiness is a decision. ~ Michael J. Fox

What other people think of me is not my business. ~ Michael J. Fox

I can say, "I don't have anything I regret!" But I can also say, "I can go forward in my life the way it is and I don't think I'll accrue any future regrets." ~ Michael J. Fox

I take the medication for myself so I can transact, not for anyone else. But I am aware that it is empowering for people to see what I do and, for the most part, people in the Parkinson's community are just really happy that Parkinson's is getting mentioned, and not in a pitying way. ~ Michael J. Fox

I worked very hard on those movies but there was some creative connection that wasn't being made. ~ Michael J. Fox

I don't keep up with it all. But Taylor Swift writes songs about everybody she goes out with, right? What a way to build a career. ~ Michael J. Fox

I have no choice about whether or not I have Parkinson's. I have nothing but choices about how I react to it. In those choices, there's freedom to do a lot of things in areas that I wouldn't have otherwise found myself in. ~ Michael J. Fox

If I don't get food in my mouth, I'm still happy. If my pants are round my ankles, as long as I don't get arrested for indecent exposure, I'm happy. I'm worried about keeping my hair, not how it's combed. ~ Michael J. Fox

Some of the best friends you'll ever meet in your life, you'll meet though your children
mothers and fathers of their friends, parents from school. You'll see. That's the way it was for Bill and me. It's one of the many gifts of parenting. ~ Michael J. Fox

Just as Parkinson's isn't a big topic of conversation in my house, neither is my career. ~ Michael J. Fox

Was an antidote to the self-consciousness that consumed me as an eccentric teenager in search of an identity. ~ Michael J. Fox

The story is a testament to the consolations that get me through and give meaning to every area of my life ~ Michael J. Fox

I owned a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Mercedes 560SL convertible, a Jeep Cherokee and a Nissan 300ZX. I can't remember the intricate decision tree I had to climb in order to determine which one to drive to work on any given day - it probably had something to do with the weather, or which car had more gas in the tank, or upholstery that best matched whatever shirt I happened to throw on that morning. ~ Michael J. Fox

While it is entirely untrue that Canadians lack a sense of humour, the funniest ones tend to head south: Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox. ~ Simon Hoggart

Only a few of us will admit it, but actors will sometimes read a script like this: bullshit ... bullshit ... my part ... blah, blah, blah ... my part ... bullshit ... ~ Michael J. Fox

I might have skipped class, but I didn't miss any lessons. ~ Michael J. Fox

I have a remarkably normal life. ~ Michael J. Fox

This is why the license plates say Beautiful British Columbia, and I realized just how much I would miss it. But all this natural beauty exists only in response to rain, I reminded myself, and the occasional day of technicolor spectacle was bought and paid for with weeks and weeks of dull, damp gray. I wasn't going to miss the gray. If ~ Michael J. Fox

A little acting debut in Spin City, with Michael J. Fox, which opened up a whole new door for me. ~ Heidi Klum

It seems to me that the quality of a moment in time is not always a reflection of the moment in and of itself - what happens before and what happens after are often what give it its savor. ~ Michael J. Fox

Tracy is more a help to me than I am to her. ~ Michael J. Fox

[My son] will have a fairly stable future. Not one where the schoolyard talk is whose father grossed $8 million on his last picture. ~ Michael J. Fox

As for my own truncated secondary education, my head was in the clouds as my mom would say, or if you asked my father, up my ass. ~ Michael J. Fox