Quotes By Ethan Hawke

My relationship to reality has been so utterly skewed for so long that I don't even notice it any more. It's just my reality.

I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.

I did one sci-fi movie. I did 'Gattaca.' I liked 'Gattaca' because that was always the kind of science fiction I really dug, the non-action oriented sci-fi.

If you're not a real chameleon of an actor and if you're not one of those guys who can really shape-change themselves all the time, one of the ways to keep pushing yourself and keep changing is to be in different kinds of movies.

I auditioned for Robert Redford once and I was so starstruck I couldn't even speak. I had a mic wire at a screen test clipped to me and then I got kind of nervous and I paced in a circle and then took a step and tripped and fell on my face. You just have to forgive yourself and keep going on.

There's something about knowing life is finite that makes it so precious.

It was never in my dreams to make my personal life anybody else's business.

'Brooklyn's Finest,' this is the kind of movie that's why I want to be an actor, to tell real-life stories. This is where I feel my job is, to interpret life.

If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.

To get to be somebody who gets to love what they do for a living, that's so rare, and so there must be some kind of price you have to pay.

It's difficult to do a genre film well, and it doesn't matter if you're talking vampire movies or 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'The Thing' or 'Escape From New York.' Those kind of movies, they understand what the old-school B-movie is supposed to be, they get the throwback of it.

I always felt that a marriage works best at a farm... where you're together and everybody has clear-cut roles; they have chores, 'you take care of this' and you know. But it's hard.

If my kids are doing well, then my life is going pretty well. And if my kids aren't doing well, it doesn't matter how the other elements of my life are. It's kind of amazing to have a context like that. This is really wonderful.

My parents thought all actors were secretly drug addicts, except for Clint Eastwood, whom they admired. But they thought it was very unlikely that I would ever be Clint Eastwood.

I was being taken around by a press agent at the Venice Film Festival at age 18. Was it fun? Sure. But it was a dangerous path to be walking on as far as having a substantive life. Because the casualty rate at the Venice Film Festival for 18-year-olds? High.

When you start becoming really successful, the demons start to tempt you - the demons of vanity and self importance, drug abuse, the feelings of fraudulence. But, it's also a thrill. That's what I found weird.

You know, I auditioned for 'Titanic.' Sometimes I muse on what would have happened. That would have been such a different life.

In all of our society, but especially in Hollywood, there is an obsession with perfection that can lead to self-loathing and neurosis and all that kind of stuff.

I'm horrified to admit that I just love Salinger. I was devastated to find out that other people feel the same way.

I remember being a kid and sleeping over at my friend's house and staying up late and watching 'Nosferatu.' Vampire movies are supposed to be secret and bad. They should be rated R.

I've had a lot of experience in independent film, and about how to choose. You've got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks, and where you cut and what you don't cut.

Some people burn out, and some people like Clint Eastwood, he was a wild, international movie star in his 30s, and he's doing the best work of his life now. Go figure.

The thing that makes a great genre movie is one that's not just entertainment, not just horror or sci-fi or whatever. The ones I love are the genre pictures with some subversive message underlying it all.

The girls who like me aren't the ones I like. Or, if I do and they want to commit, I suddenly need tons of time with my friends.

The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is to meet a kindred spirit.

If I do three movies in a year, I don't feel like acting ever again.

The biggest problem in my life is trying to be the kind of man that I want to be, the father that I want to be, and how to process the failure of my marriage.

I think it's my job to risk looking foolish. One of the things I've learned from the actors I've worked with is you don't get something for nothing. If you don't risk looking foolish, you'll never do anything special.

Right now the only people I can really fall in love with are people who don't really, truly want me around. Now why do I do that?

In New York, you've got Donald Trump, Woody Allen, a crack addict and a regular Joe, and they're all on the same subway car.