Quotes

Quotes  by Tom Hanks. 

•  About his wife, actress Rita Wilson) “That woman has loved me skinny, she’s loved me fat. She’s love me bald, she’s loved me hairy. That woman, I know, loves me. So, I’m a lucky man”.

• (Describing his college days) “Actingclasses looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn’t take dates with me. I’d just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat, and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Berthold Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Henrik Ibsen, and all that”.

• (Describing his school days) “I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who’d yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn’t get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible”.

• (From his 2005 commencement speech to Vassar College graduates) “Make peace where it is precious. Help plant trees. Help embrace diversity and celebrate difference. Help stop gridlock”.

• (On filming “Cast Away”) “There was nothing to react to except wind and trees. It was like making a silent movie.”

• (On his 2007 film, “The Pacific”) “The story of World War II has been told again and again and again. It has always been a celebration of the greatest generation etc. We have had to go to a much deeper and darker place on this otherwise we’re wasting our time. So, that’s what we’re attempting to do on this”.

• (Revealing he can’t understandwhy people are fascinated with his hair) “When you just start out and no one knows you from Adam, nobody says to you, ‘What’s with the hair?’ You’re just a guy, and that’s the way your hair is. Then you become famous, and people suddenly start saying things like, ‘What do you mean by the hair?’ That’s what happened to me when I did The Da Vinci Code”.

• “As a boy I’d often spend my days biking on riverbeds and arroyos and come home exhausted. I realize now how much I took for granted having the natural world so close at hand. It wasn’t until I moved away, first to New York and then to Los Angeles, that I realized how much I missed the outdoors”.

• “Eating everything you want is not that much fun”.

• “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”.

• “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”.

• “Growing up in northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland, we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the Sierras the next day”.

• “He got me invested in some kinda fruit company”.

• “I am not a cynical person. I assume the best of everybody until I am proven…”

• “I do not want to admitto the world that I can be a bad person. It is just that I don’t want anyone to have false expectations. Movie making is a harsh, volatile business, and unless you can be ruthless, too, there’s a good chance that you are going to disappear off the scene pretty quickly. So appearances can be deceptive, particularly in Hollywood”

• “I love what I do for a living, it’s the greatest job in the world, but you have to survive an awful lot of attention that you don’t truly deserve and you have to live up to your professional responsibilities and I’m always trying to balance that with what is really important”.

• “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?”

• “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.”

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

• “I’m glad I didn’t have to fight in any war. I’m glad I didn’t have to pick up a gun. I’m glad I didn’t get killed or kill somebody. I hope my kids enjoy the same lack of manhood.”

• “I’m ludicrously proud of Colin, but I’m not surprised he’s acting. When I saw him in his junior high school plays I knew where he was headed. I saw the talent”

• “I’ve made over 20 movies, and 5 of them are good”.

• “If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great”.

• “If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”Life is like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re gonna get.”

• “If you have to have a job in this world, a high-priced movie star is a pretty good gig.”

• “If you’re funny, if there’s something that makes you laugh, then every day’s going to be okay.”

• “In hotel rooms, I strip and walk around naked. It’s as close as I can get to a feeling of anonymity and power.”

• “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.”

• “It’s funny like a movie like ‘Forrest Gump,’ which is, you know, a feature film about a mentally retarded man, … When you think about it, a lot of the humor came from laughing at Forrest. But you know that the movie was made with a good heart, and you really care about him. And the movie maker cares about him.”

• “It’s just as hard . . . staying happily married as it is doing movies.”

• “It’s the same stuff they usedin that fourth “Lord of the Rings” movie. Or was it the 19th “Lord of the Rings” movie? You know the one where Boldo and Jingy travel across the bridge? I don’t know, I don’t know their names. When I watch “Lord of the Rings”, I just think, “Someone got their finger stuck on the word processor for too long”.

• “May you live as long as you want and not want as long as you live.”

• “Movie-making is telling a story with the best technology at your disposal.”

• “My favorite traditional Christmas movie that I like to watch is All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). It’s just not December without that movie in my house.”

• “My kid could get a bad X-ray and I could get a call from the doctor saying I have something growing in my bum and that would change my perspective on everything instantaneously, on what is and what is not important.”

• “My wife keeps on telling me my worst fault is that I keep things to myself and appear relaxed. But I am really in a room in my own head and not hearing a thing anyone is saying.”

• “My work is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels / we know their names, they number a thousand for each red ribbon we wear here tonight.”

• “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.”

• “Regarding the WGA Strike and how it could affect the Academy Awards: The show must go on, that is one of the tenets of everything. I am a member of the board of governors of the Academy, and we definitely want to put on a great show and honor the films that have come out in the course of the year. I just hope that the big guys who make big decisions, up high in their corporate boardrooms and what not, get down to honest bargaining and everyone can get back to work.”

• “Some people go to bed at night thinking, “That was a good day.” I am one of those who worries and asks, “How did I screw up today?”

• “That’s what’s nice about directing a film and having it done: There’s nothing more I can do about it. It’s done. That’s it. All I can do is let it go and hope that people are kind to it.”

• “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.”

• “There is a huge amount of stuff I’m simply not available for. If they want to make a movie in a certain amount of time and I just can’t, I don’t even want to see that stuff because if it’s really great, I’d be bummed out. So actually I think I say no to a lot less stuff than I used to simply because I don’t see it.”

• “There is something basic about protecting land by taking it off the market. People should be able to enjoy where they live while at the same time protect the plants and animals around them.”

• “There was nothing to react to except wind and trees [in Cast Away]. It was like making a silent movie.”

• “There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.”

• “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.”