William Hurt Quotes

Being a father, being a friend, those are the things that make me feel successful.

The perfection in theater is that it's over the second it's done

The Alexander Technique has helped me to undo knots, unblock energy and deal with almost paralysing stage fright

The greatest single human gift is the ability to chase down our dreams.

Heroes to me are guys that sit in libraries. They absorb knowledge and then the risks they take are calculated on the basis of the courage it took to become replete with knowledge.

Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I'm a failure

All I know is that my best work has come out of being committed and happy.

But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.

Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.

I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people

I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process

And I don't want to use my troubles as an example of what to do and what not to do.

You don't look at it as the size of the role. Quantity is not the point. You can be as thorough in 30 seconds as you can in three hours.

When I look at a person, or a character, it is in every case the beginning of an endless journey. And I don't suppose I know where that starts. I know that I have to, like every other person, make decisions and have opinions. But I'm real careful to not judge crassly or cheaply someone else's life.

I just looked at him because I want to be looking in someone's eyes when I die.

Great risks come in long term, tremendously assiduous, very courageous study.

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you're just trying to get in and you're given so little time to get in gently, but it's always hard.

The art is about opening, it is not about prejudice, it is not about contempt prior to investigation. It's about endlessly trying to keep from having contempt by admitting that you don't know. Even if you know a lot compared to some other people, usually, I think, the honest experience would be: "God, how little I know! And how much I need to have compassion for myself and for other people."

I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging

What's really frustrating with movies is the lack of improvement.

Also CSPAN is really the great treasure of the media as far as getting information.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

I'm not comfortable with walking the red carpet in a tuxedo and seeing all the women with their boobs pushed up and all the men dressed as penguins - particularly when the subject of your film is the nature of violence and humanity.

If you're lucky, and not a lot of actors are these days, you get the chance to create a character