Quotes By John Cusack

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 think when you get to the point where you don't need to be in love, then you could be in love. You have to just be OK with yourself-and that's a long process.

I have a bit of a rebellious nature.

Sometimes you meet people and you feel like you've known them for a long time.

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.

I was raised Irish Catholic, but I don't consider myself Irish Catholic: I consider myself me, an American.

The British keep employing me, and that makes me like them. It also makes me think they're very intelligent.

I was only in one of the John Hughes films, and I never saw the other ones. I didn't understand them. I kept hearing a really hip 40-year-old person talking in teenagers' mouths.

I remember once acting really cool on a bus with this girl named Stephanie. When I got home, I realized that I had a really big zit on my forehead. If you have acne problems, you really shouldn't be acting like Don Juan.

Every role you do is kind of a side of yourself. That's why they give you the part.

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 was a teen star. That's disgusting enough.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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