Quotes By Ethan Hawke

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.

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.

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

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

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.

'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.

I don't know what has happened to movies, but lately every movie is at least 20 minutes too long. It used to be that if you were three hours long it was because it was epic - a movie about Gandhi; something with very important subject matters.

I'd be lying if I said I had confidence in every choice I've made, that I have faith in every film I do on every shot.

As a young man... you don't know anything about yourself. And add on to that, you're on the cover of magazines. People are interviewing you about what you think. You feel like a real phony.

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.

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 think having nature be a part of people's lives helps all of us see ourselves as part of something larger.

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.

At every turn, when humanity is asked the question, 'Do you want temporary economic gain or long-term environmental loss, which one do you prefer,' we invariably choose the money.

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

There's some kind of actors that can radically change who they are from movie to movie. I've never really been that kind of actor. I enjoy changing the worlds that I'm in.

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

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.

Right now, if you're interested in being a dramatic actor, they're not making that many just regular dramas. Movies have to have some other thing going on.