Quotes By Tom Hanks

I would not want to live in a country that would have me as a leader in any sort of political bent.

There was a period of time in Los Angeles when I wondered if I was just going to lose everything.

What we're doing with Band of Brothers is trying to put it into human terms, so it is not just a flickering, black and white myth on a screen, it is a resonant story. I want the audience to recognize themselves in these men. They're not just mythic heroes.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

My job has always been to hold a mirror up to nature.

E-mail is far more convenient than the telephone, as far as I'm concerned. I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.

My favorite traditional Christmas movie that I like to watch is All Quiet on the Western Front. It's just not December without that movie in my house.

I will entertain anything; it doesn't matter. You know, it's not obviously about the price, it's not about who, it's kind of about when and what. It's material, that's all.

Human beings do things for a reason, even if sometimes it's the wrong reason.

If you look at romantic comedies as pieces of commerce, the audience is looking for wish fulfillment.

I went to college because I didn't have anywhere else to go and it was a fabulous hang. And while I was there I was exposed to this world that I didn't know was possible.

It's always a combination of physics and poetry that I find inspiring. It's hard to wrap your head around things like the Hubble scope.

But actors with political views are a dime a dozen.

I must say that I do wrestle with the amount of money I make, but at the end of the day what am I gonna say? I took less money so Rupert Murdoch could have more?

The year I was born, 1956, was the peak year for babies being born, and there are more people essentially our age than anybody else. We could crush these new generations if we decided too.

I don't cause riots, but I do cause confusion. People freeze when they spot me.

May you live as long as you want and not want as long as you live.

Prior to Saving Private Ryan I never worked with men. I was always working with some babe, and it was always about falling in love, and it just got turned around. I'm not looking for any particular kind of story. I wait until it comes across my desk.

Repertory theater is all about being part of the whole, one of the many colors in this vast palette.

But look, I was born in 1956, the peak year for births in US history. I think I'm very representative of many of the thought processes my generation have been through and, by and large, people of my age have had their imprint planted on the consciousness of western society for a long time.

The nature of motion capture is only going to work for certain films. It's not going to put any other type of movies out of business.

As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out.

The truth is that everyone pays attention to who's number one at the box office. And none of it matters, because the only thing that really exists is the connection the audience has with a movie.

No journalist has ever been in my house and no photographs have ever been taken of where I live. I don't parade my family out for display, which is the way it will stay.

I'm not interested in doing something edgy with a capital E just so everyone knows, 'Oh, OK, now he's showing us he can do edgy.'

My TV show had been cancelled; nothing else had gone anywhere; some alliances I had made petered out and nothing came of them and I was looking at a long, long year ahead of me in which there was no work on the horizon, the phone wasn't ringing. I had two kids, one of them a brand-new baby, and I didn't know if I would be able to keep my house.

And then it was like, wait, you can go to college and study theater? And act in plays? This is almost a racket, you know. And then when the opportunity came along to do it professionally, I thought I'd won the lottery.