Quotes By John Cusack

I read Noam Chomsky. I like some of Gore Vidal's stuff.

Well, acting itself is a form of rebellion, always. Getting up there in front of people, telling stories - you're kind of going against the grain to begin with, wanting to do that, don't you think? Why else would you do it? Except maybe as kind of a way to affirm your very existence.

If you're going to get into social criticism with absurdity and satire, you can't be politically correct when you do that.

I wanted to just be a filmmaker, and I thought I wanted to do all the aspects, and it seemed like as a producer was the best way to do it, because I could have... You never have control on a movie, but you have as much control as you can.

I remember the '80s being about the Cold War and Reagan and the homeless problem and AIDS. To me, it was kind of a dark, depressing time.

I have a bit of a rebellious nature.

My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.

No, actors go out with actresses as a form of self-flagellation.

Usually I play people who just keep babbling on and on and on.

People try to keep their past, like kind of holding on to their past. Every Springsteen song talks about that.

Most movies, once the action starts there's no more characters. You say a couple of dumb lines and then there's just explosions until the end.

Well, any time you do anything good, it's man versus himself, right? That's the art, the challenge.

Hopefully as you get older you get more selfless. That would be probably a good goal. I don't know if we do, though.

Nope, no sex scandals yet. But I am open to offers!

I think the more you expose yourself as a celebrity, the less interesting you are to watch in your work, because if you're putting yourself out there all the time, you're not holding anything back.

I think good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess. You don't actually consummate it, but you get to pretend, imagine what it would be like.

I am rich enough.

If you wanna give me an award, I'll take it. Just don't make me go to the party afterwards.

I was a teen star. That's disgusting enough.

The ages two to 15 I spent at different stages of shortness. I didn't become a tall person until I was 16.

Any time you stop looking at evil as a black and white thing, it's helpful. So the fact that there won't be any obligatory Islamic terrorist stereotypes in movies any more, that'd be helpful.

The movies have got more corporate, they're making fewer movies in general, and those they are making are all $200-$300m tent-pole releases that eat up all the oxygen.

You can only really judge yourself in comparison to other people. How bad you are, but you're not as bad as someone else. So it's degrees of losing.

A lot of people are not meant to be together.

Kitsch is more dangerous than it looks when taken to the extreme.

There are some good people. But a good chunk of them will lie for no reason at all - it'll be ten o'clock and they'll tell you it's nine. You're looking at the clock and you can't even fathom why they're lying. They just lie because that's what they do.

Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers.

But, you know, I'm sorry, I think democracy requires participation. I mean, I don't want to proselytize but I do feel some sort of duty to participate in the process in some way other than just blindly getting behind a political party.

Texas women have an amazing sense of purpose when they lose it. They're the best girls in the world - they're loyal and fun, but when they get mad, they'll try to kill you.

It's something we, guys, have all done. Made tapes for girls, trying to impress them, to meet them on a shared plane of aesthetics. Read them someone else's poetry because they do poetry better than you could do it, because you're too awkward to do it.