Quotes By Tommy Lee Jones

I don't do anything that is not fun. I just don't do it.

I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival.

What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.

Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.

I personally don't live a nihilistic life, I don't have any use for it.

My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative.

I enjoy acting more and more than when I was 17.

I want to make movies about my country from my point of view.

It's no fun to be a struggling young actor. It's a desperate thing, no way to be happy. If you have any alternative, you should take it.

As an actor I want to do as many takes as I can. I wanna shoot the scene... or shoot the shot 'til they make me quit.

I don't get it. If you're saying, Tommy Lee, you don't fit the image of the East Coast, social elitist wealthy people who comprise Harvard, the only thing I can say is you have no idea what comprises Harvard.

If you don't hurt anybody or try to steal anything, you'll be fine in the South.

Normal people with normal problems can be hilarious.

You know, I don't really think you have to play nice guys.

If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.

I'm always happy to have a job.

My home town is very small and very remote and we don't have a movie house.

I have nothing against interviews. I don't pursue them. When people I work for deem it appropriate, I'm perfectly willing to serve.

Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.

I don't analyze things like titles.

Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused.

Partnerships are good engines for narrative.

I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.

I think that no matter how much you don't like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it.

No director wants to be directed, but no good director... would shy away from the good ideas of others.

As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.

You can't instruct an audience to laugh, but what you can do is read well and understand the spirit and subtleties, if there are any, in the dialogue.

The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is 'When is lunch?'

If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.

I've never really known what glamour is.