2. “I’ve noticed that worrying is like praying for what you don’t want to happen.”
3. “Life is just so painful and messy and hard and worth it and all that stuff.”
4. “Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.”
5. “Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk.”
6. “I think that we all do heroic things, but hero is not a noun, it’s a verb.”
7. “I think you end up doing the stuff you were supposed to do at the time you were supposed to do it.”
8. “Discipline for me is about respect. It’s not even about self-respect, it’s about respect for life and all it offers.”
9. “Sometimes you just gotta be drop-kicked out of the nest.”
10. “To me, friendship means loving tolerance.”
11. “Do I want to be a hero to my son? No. I would like to be a very real human being. That’s hard enough.”
12. “Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”
13. “You need to know what to do when the sun is not shining.”
14. “You have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end.”
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15. “I think it’s miraculous that anybody survives themselves.”
16. “I have a sense of destiny that you are led to the things you are supposed to do.”
17. “Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I’m not afraid of total failure because I don’t think that will happen. I’m not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It’s being in the middle that scares me.”
18. “Dad’s Jewish and Irish, Mom’s German and Scotch. I couldn’t say I was anything. My last name isn’t even Downey. My dad changed his name when he wanted to get into the Army and was underage. My real name is Robert Elias. I feel like I’m still looking for a home in some way.”
19. “Whenever I watch someone doing something, even if it doesn’t turn out so great, I at least admire their intentions and stuff.”
20. “I don’t need an Iron Man suit. I’m already a weapon of mass seduction.”
21. “It’s really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems, what’s hard is to decide.”
22. “For years I took pride in being resilient.”
23. “When you have a good script you’re almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.”
24. “I just think it’s good to be confident. If I’m not on my team why should anybody else be?”
25. “I want to give myself the freedom not to have to be projecting my whole life ahead.”
26. “The higher the stakes, the happier I am, the better I will be.”
27. “I am in the continual process of transcending fear.”
28. “Nothing’s a break for me. Not even the breaks are breaks.”
29. “Look, even bad years are pretty good years, I think.”
30. “I think that power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.”
31. “I always think part of success is being able to replicate results, taking what is interesting or viable about yourself as a professional person and seeing if you bring it into different situations with similar results.”
32. “Nothing will serve you better than a . Nothing.”
33. “There’s somewhere you’re supposed to go, and if you get quiet enough, you’ll make it.”
34. “Growing up is something that you do your whole life. I want to always feel that I can be a kid if I want.”
35. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you can act. If you can go into a room and make these sweaters want you, that’s what’ll get you the job.”
36. “In the marathon obstacle course of a career, it’s just good to have all the stats on paper for why you’re not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you’ve made so much damned money for the studio.”
37. “I’ve always felt that if you’re not on your side, why should anyone else be? So I always encourage people to be confident, and sometimes even a little falsely so, just so you can give yourself an opportunity.”
38. “I don’t think I’m in any position to give anybody advice about anything.”
39. “Don’t do anything I would do, and definitely don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. There’s a little grey area there, and that’s where you operate.”
40. “People rise out of the ashes because, at some point, they are invested with a belief in the possibility of triumph over seemingly impossible odds.”
41. “People never change because they are under threat or under duress. Never. They change because they see something that makes their life seem valuable enough to start moving toward a life worth living.”
42. “I take some pride in representing myself exactly how I would like to have my son remember me to his kids.”
43. “You have to let go of the things that are darling to you. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on the shape of the scene and the intention of what everyone else needs.”
44. “It’s hard to get out of the barrel. It’s slippery around the edges and people are happy to see you fall back in.”
45. “I think life changes every year. This is just a little more comfortable.”
46. “There is unpanned gold in every soul you run into, no matter what walk of life they are from.”
47. “I’m coming from a place of total strength and humility now.”
48. “I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal, yet all those years I was chasing after it I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends, and family.”
49. “At the end of the day, anything I think I’m sacrificing I’m just giving up because it makes me feel better.”
50. “If you’re raised with a poverty mentality, nothing is going to change it. I do know some really stingy billionaires. I come from such a generation of hand-to-mouthers.”
51. “I was kind of like chasing my tail and trying to do the right thing and was a little bit stupid. Or irresponsible, which is the same thing I guess. It’s just been really busy and I had a lot of great opportunities.”
52. “Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you’re here or out in the world dealing with problems. It’s second nature for me now. I don’t even get to the point where there’s a problem.”
53. “I don’t want to go all Michael Jackson on you, but I never really had a childhood.”
54. “It’s interesting when you’re old enough to take a new, objective approach looking at your parents, frame them in a way where you are actually taking yourself out of the equation and just look at the things that are true about their life.”
55. “I need a lot of support. , and I don’t see some active benevolent force out there. I see it as basically a really cool survival game.”
56. “In movies, people seem to be more emotional than they would ever be if that situation was actually happening to them.”
57. “Addiction is not about placating the bad dog, it’s about feeding the good dog. You still have to feed the bad dog, but only enough so that the ASPCA doesn’t bring you up on charges.”
58. “I’m very good at deconstructing. I’m a very good troubleshooter for why something is unlikely to work. And most everything is unlikely to work.”
59. “I understand the reversal of fortune, that usually has come through my own hand, but you know, you live life on life’s terms.”
60. “I’ve always felt like an outsider in this industry. Because I’m so insane I guess.”
61. “Acting is always a challenge.”
62. “Job one is to get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don’t change.”
63. “It’s a very smart and heartfelt movie and that’s why, I think, we’re all drawn to it. We really showed up for this with this collective idea that it was really ambitious, but we felt we all really had something to gain from it.”
64. “Nothing pleases me more than when somebody who was awe-inspired to be working with me realizes I’m just another schmuck that they’re bored of hanging out with on a set. I love that moment.”
65. “I like it when that persistent illusion is smashed.”
66. “I like mainstream movies that are completely off the wall.”
67. “If you’re doing a drama that has some comedic elements you can’t forget that it’s primarily a very serious film that has some light relief.”
68. “One thing about how the media likes to show us at our worst is, you figure why be on best behavior all the time when all it takes is one slip-up?”
69. “I know very little about acting. I’m just an incredibly gifted faker.”
70. “I didn’t have an identity. It was manufactured. My identity now? It was written on the wall by ancient forces.”
71. “If I could eat whatever I wanted every day, I would have Domino’s pizza with pasta carbonara inside every slice. And at night, I would have Neapolitan ice cream until I felt absolutely toxic. And then I would drift off telling myself, ‘It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay if you’re going to train in the morning.”
72. “I’ve always been a fella who puts most of my eggs in one basket and then takes a dump in the basket but I really don’t know.”
73. “Oh, I don’t drink these days. I’m allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs.”
74. “I’m not a poster boy for good behavior and recovery in Hollywood, I’m just a guy who knows he has a lot to be grateful for.”
75. “I’m not particularly tall, strong, fast, or aggressive.”
76. “I just don’t like big guys who speak cryptically and act like they understand the language better than me.”
77. “I know who I am.”
78. “I’m such a work in progress at the moment, it’s crazy, and life wants me on edge, I swear to you. But as long as I don’t forget the past, I’m cool.”
79. “If I was a lawyer, I’d be my own best client.”
80. “I guess the issue for me is to keep things dynamic.”
81. “I don’t want to be so confident in myself.”
82. “I’m in a happy relationship, me and my ex are on really good terms, my kid and I are in a good spot.”
83. “I loved it, it’s such fun. I like that people are seeing it and then talking about it. Like when I took my son and his friends to see Napoleon Dynamite last year, we spent the next six weeks trying to explain it.”
84. “I’m not 40 yet. I wouldn’t even bother comparing myself to Chaplin.”
85. “Sometimes if you’re wanting to look just a little bit taller, then you want to dress with just more of a thin cut.”
86. “One must always be mindful, just like you might forget that old girlfriend who tried to slit your throat, but she’s really still hot. If you remember the stitches more than you remember the pussy, you’re going to be just fine.”
87. “If someone really takes a risk, it doesn’t get dismissed.”
88. “Pick a dysfunction and it’s a family problem.”
89. “I think I just never wanted to be the creepy guy where people say, ‘Why do his leading ladies keep getting younger and younger, and why do they think he’s so hot even though we know that the girl who’s playing this part actually has a handsome boyfriend?’”
90. “Does any new parent, even if you’re not a first-time parent, ever really know what to do?”
91. “There are some parents who have really done it right and told their kid, You know, we have this dough, none of this is for you. You have to get your own.”
92. “All I want, and I think all any parent with a semblance of a moral psychology wants, is for my kid to have his own experience, uninhibited.”
93. “I’ve always just shown up and tried to figure out what’s for lunch and am I going to get to play some racquetball that night.”
94. “Tofu is the root of all evil, and there’s only one thing that can change a man’s mind, and that’s a modified Uzi with an extra-long clip.”
95. “The old saying is true, behind every good man there’s an incredible woman.”
96. “Smoking dope and smoking coke, you are rendered defenseless. The only way out of that hopeless state is intervention.”
97. “There’s a little bit of asshole in every nice guy, and there’s a little bit of genius in every moron.”
98. “McDonald’s being the official restaurant of the Olympics is like smoking being the official medicine of cancer.”
99. “I read the script for Wonder Boys, and I said that it was almost perfect, it was so classy, cool, and funny. It’s a really specific thing. We stuck to it, it turned out good and a lot of people liked it.”
100. “I grew up with a lot of people whose whole prime mover was dad rage. I never really had it. It always seemed so empty. It always seemed to be masking something else, which was really their own lack of initiative.”