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I Have Instinctually Thought I Could Do Things In My Life, And I Followed That Up By Sometimes Putting Everything I Have At Risk - My Money, My House - To Make A Movie.

-Kevin Costner

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I Have Instinctually Thought

Kevin Costner

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I Have Instinctually Thought I Could Do Things In My Life, And I Followed That Up By Sometimes Putting Everything I Have At Risk - My Money, My House - To Make A Movie.

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I've Always Known That I'm A Little Out Of Vogue.

I Like American History, So I Was Aware Of The Participants And A Lot Of It.

American History

There's Real Drama In Performing Live. You Never Know How It's Going To Be.

It's Never Bothered Me To Work Hard. I've Probably Worked On Some Of The Longest Schedules In Movie History.

The Kind Of Love That These Young Men Have And The Respect That They Have For Their Fathers, I Don't See That As Much In America As You See In The Latino Community, And It's Really Something To Behold.

Field Of Dreams Is Probably Our Generation's It's A Wonderful Life.

It's Nice To Be Wanted. That's A Really Good Feeling. I'm Not Immune To It.

I Deal With Pressure. I Have A Tendency To Probably Be At My Best Under Pressure.

I Like When My Face Tingles, When The Hair On The Back Of My Neck Stands Up.

I Believe In The Soul ... The Small Of A Woman's Back, The Hanging Curveball, High Fiber, Good Scotch, That The Novels Of Susan Sontag Are Self-indulgent, Overrated Crap. I Believe Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone. I Believe There Ought To Be A Constitutional Amendment Outlawing Astroturf And The Designated Hitter. I Believe In The Sweet Spot, Soft-core Pornography, Opening Your Presents Christmas Morning Rather Than Christmas Eve, And I Believe In Long, Slow, Deep, Soft, Wet Kisses That Last Three Days.

I'm Only Interested In Being A Good Actor And In Being Remembered For My Best Films, Not For The Way I Look. But It Seems Inevitable In This Line Of Work That I Have To Care About The Way I Look Without Getting Obsessed About It.

We Still Live With This Unbelievable Threat Over Our Heads Of Nuclear War. I Mean, Are We Stupid? Do We Think That The Nuclear Threat Has Gone, That The Nuclear Destruction Of The Planet Is Not Imminent? It's A Delusion To Think It's Gone Away.

Failure Doesn't Kill You... It Increases Your Desire To Make Something Happen.

When I Make A Film I'm Away From Home For Two To Three Months. So I Want My Kids To Look At My Films One Day And Say, I Love His Movies, I Love His Choices-because He Loved Them.

Sometimes It Takes A Partner To Say, "what Is It You Want?" Because I Think We Operate In Life And Sometimes We Don't Know. We're All In Some Kind Of Maze Going After The Cheese At The End, And We Get It And We Go, "what Is It That We Want?"

I Work For The Public, For The People Who Are Paying To Go To The Cinema, Rather Than For The Critics.

I Try To Please Myself. I Don't Try To Anticipate What People Want To See.

I Don't Think I Ever Take Huge Risks, Though I'm Not Scared Of Doing So.

We All Have That Burning Question About What Happens If We Lose Somebody We Love, Especially If We Lose Them Tragically. We Wonder What Fear Was Going On, We Wonder If We Could Have Reached Out And Touched Them, Held Their Hand, Looked In Their Eyes, Been There.

We're At A Point In History Where Everyone Needs To Pay Attention To Politics. Too Much Is At Stake For Us To Be Apathetic.

I Know I Have This Level Of Celebrity, Of Fame, International, National, Whatever You Want To Call It, But It's A Pretty Surreal Thing To Think Sometimes That You're In The Middle Of Another Famous Person's Life And You Think To Yourself, 'how The Hell Did I Get Famous? What Is This Some Weird Club That We're In?'

If You Think Of 'liberty Valance' Or 'the Searchers,' There Are Moments In There That You'll Never, Ever Forget... And It Does Not Matter What Century You Are From.

Audiences Trust Westerns When You Hit The Right Tone. I Think They're Not In Vogue, But They Will Always Be In Vogue When You Hit The Right Note.

When You Start Searching For Your Name, You Might Be Thrilled With What A Lot Of People Say And It Just Takes One Person. And It Can Hurt Your Feelings, But I Have Been Aware Of The Fan Bases And Stuff Like That And Realize How Deeply Involved They Are.

You Have To Pick The Stories That You Want To Be Involved With And The End Game Is You'd Like To Be A Part Of A Hit. But I Think Your Moral Obligation Is To Follow Your Own Heart.

I've Been Around Where I Knew Other Actors Were Going To Steal The Scene, And I Don't Compete With Them.

I Think That You Try To Raise The Bar On Whatever You Do Because You Know, In This Day Of Having To Deal With A Lot Of Reality Tv, People Say That Scripted Programming Is Dying, So You Have To Try To Create Something That Can Live In People's Minds, Long After They See It.

I've Had Some Movies That Have Been Ridiculed, But That's Ok With Me. I Don't Feel That Really Defines Me. Should I Change Who I Am To Be Popular?

I Always Thought The Leading Actor Should Be The Best Supporting Actor, Because You're The Only Person That Can Help Every Other Actor On The Set.

When You Draw A Western Correctly, You Create Such Drama, Such Dilemma That You Think You Almost Don't Want To Admit Who You Might Have Been.

I Was In The Show For 21 Days Once-the 21 Greatest Days Of My Life. You Know, You Never Handle Your Luggage In The Show, Somebody Else Carries Your Bags. It Was Great. You Hit White Balls For Batting Practice, The Ballparks Are Like Cathedrals, The Hotels All Have Room Service, And The Women All Have Long Legs And Brains.

My Whole Life Has Been Instinctual For Me. I Wouldn't Do Well In The Computer World. My Children Look At Me For A Question And Then They Quickly Look Away Because They Know That I'm Not Going To Know How To Make Super Mario Or Do Anything.

When I Read A Story That I Think Has Value And I Want To Be In It, That Doesn't Change For Me. It Doesn't Fall Out Of Favor For Me. I Might Have To Move On Because The Universe Is Saying You Can't Make This Right Now. But I'm Going To Circle Back And Make It.

I Feel Like I've Been Able To Live A Dream Life, But My View Of Things Is Absolutely Inside Behavior About How I Behave And How I Count On Other People Behaving.

If You Don't Understand Your Limitations You Won't Achieve Much In Your Life.

We Recognize Ourselves In Westerns, ... I Believe The Western Can Orchestrate Moments Around Reality. The Reality Can Be As Entertaining To Us As The Lie.

Conventional Wisdom Is So Scary Because What If Everybody's Wrong?

Conventional Wisdom

I've Been Able To Do A Lot Of Things In The Movies. I've Been Able To Run With The Buffalo, You Know. I've Been Able To Pitch A Perfect Game In Yankee Stadium. I've Been In The Bathtub With Susan Sarandon. I've Had A Lot Of Chances To Do A Lot Of Things. I Enjoy Sports, But I Enjoy Sports So Much To The Point That I Wouldn't Do The Movie Unless I Thought It Had A Chance To Be Good.

If I Had A Choice Of Having A Woman In My Arms Or Shooting A Bad Guy On A Horse, I'd Take The Horse. It's A Lot More Fun

I Don't Read As Much As I'd Like. I've Been Writing A Lot. I've Been Doing A Lot Of Music, But I Don't Read As Much As I Should. I Just Don't.

I Think I'm A Pretty Right Down The Middle Guy. I Just Think That's Kind Of Who I Am. I'm Not Afraid Of My Own Journey.

Cowboy Movies Aren't Supposed To Be In Vogue. I Still Like Them. You Know, I'm Still Out There Pitching The Hell Out Of Them.

I Actually Play Sports Better When I'm Mad. Some Players Don't Play Better When They're Mad. They Lose Their Sense Of Where They're At. I Have A Tendency To Do Better When I'm Under Pressure.

I Think I Just Wanted To Work When I Finally Came To Hollywood. That's What It Was. I Wanted To Get A Job, And Then I Wanted To Get The Second One.

Life's Better When It's Fun. Boy, That's Deep, Isn't It?

If You're Going To Tear Down A Hero, You Should Never Forget That You're Tearing Down Someone Else's Hero. You're Tearing Down Somebody Else's Son. You Might Have To Face Her One Day.

I've Always Felt That Failure Was A Completely Underrated Experience.

I Am A Really Writer-oriented Actor.

Sex And Golf Are The Two Things You Can Enjoy Even If You're Not Good At Them.

Real Heroes Are Men Who Fall And Fail And Are Flawed, But Win Out In The End Because They've Stayed True To Their Ideals And Beliefs And Commitments.

I Have Instinctually Thought I Could Do Things In My Life, And I Followed That Up By Sometimes Putting Everything I Have At Risk - My Money, My House - To Make A Movie.

I'm Getting Those Familiar Feelings, And I'm Just Going To Enjoy The Process Of Getting To Know Someone Again.

I Stand Up For What I Believe. I Don't Know If It's Always Paid Off For Me, Because I've Been Ridiculed And Humiliated.

You're This Rat In The American Maze, Working Your Way Towards The Cheese, Which Is A Job.

Some People Come To You Because If You're In Their Movie, It'll Help Them Raise Money. And Some People Come To You Because They Think You're The Person To Play The Part.

It's Nice To Be Wanted In Almost Any Capacity.

I Don't Go Against The Grain Because I'm A Contrary Person.

There's A Moment In Time Where Kids Really Don't Want To Hear Anything From Their Parents.

I'm A Big Fan Of Dreams. Unfortunately, Dreams Are Our First Casualty In Life - People Seem To Give Them Up, Quicker Than Anything, For A 'reality.'

I Don't Like Definitions. I Like Four-hour Movies.

I've Always Been Distracted When Somebody Is Coming After Me And Saying, "you're The Only Person Who Can Play This Part."

I Wait And Take On Projects That I Think Can Work.

Lincoln Was The Greatest Speaker And He Was Ridiculed For How He Looked, You Know?

I've Never Changed My Approach To Acting. I've Always Felt Like I've Gotten Better. I Think That All Of Us Can Get Better. I Feel Like, In My Acting, I'm Better Than I Was Three Pictures Ago. I Think About It. I'm A Slow Study. It Takes Me A Long Time To Grasp The Material, In Order To Perform It. But When I Come To The Set, On The First Day, I Know The Whole Movie. That's Why I Have To Start Early.

We All Have To Have Our North Star That We Fix On And Go To, But Life Is So Much About The Things That Bump Into You.

I Think There's True Drama In The Formation Of Everything That We Know And Are Standing On The Shoulders Of.

I Haven't Lived A Perfect Life. I Have Regrets. But That's From A Lifetime Of Taking Chances, Making Decisions, And Trying Not To Be Frozen. The Only Thing That I Can Do With My Regrets Is Understand Them.

I Want To Be A Part Of Something, And When We Define Movies Now Based On How They Do On The Weekend. We Live In A Society Of "thumbs Up, Thumbs Down."

When I Read Thirteen Days I Was Moved By It. It Was Just A Great Time For The World, In Terms Of Looking Back In History And Seeing How We Got Ourselves Into Trouble And How We Got Ourselves Out Of Trouble.

If It's Fifty Years From Now And It Still Has The Same Value, That's A Movie.

The Western Will Always Be Here. And It Just Depends On How Good You Make One. And One Movie Doesn't Kill It. And One Movie Doesn't Preserve It. It's Storytelling. It's A Very American Thing. I'll Continue To Do It.

I Want To Live Forever, And I Know I Won't. I'm Not Afraid Of Dying. I'm Only Afraid Of One Thing: Not Being Able To Raise My Kids.

What Is It You Want? That's A Question That We All Get Posed Sometimes Internally And Sometimes Externally.

When A Defining Moment Comes Along, You Define The Moment, Or The Moment Defines You.

Defining Moments

In My Younger Days, I Used To Pick Up Sluts, And I Don't Mean That Nastily. It's More A Term Of Endearment, Really, For Girls Who Know How To Speak Their Minds.

The Truth Is, I Just Want Do Things That Are Original And Throw An Original Spin On Them.

We Really Don't Rest If We Think Our Kids Are Drifting, Or If We Think They Don't Have The Right Work Ethic. It Drives Us Crazy. Because We Ultimately Want Them To Succeed And, Until They Do, We Feel In Some Way That Something Is Not Complete.

If Somebody Said My Wife's Not Beautiful, I'd Go, She Is. I Wouldn't Say, Really? No, She Is. I Know She Is. In My Mind, You Know.

I Think These Movies Are As Much For People Of That Time As For People Who Weren't Born. For People Who Weren't Born, They See How Leaders Must Act Under A Crisis Situation, Not Trying To Be Re-elected Or Not Trying To Check Polls, That They Go From Their Gut Check.

You Just Do The Things That You Love And See If Other People Can Like Them Too.

I Have Seen Soldiers Panic At The First Sight Of Battle, And A Squire Pulling Arrows From His Body To Fight And Save His Dying Horse. Nobility Is Not A Birthright, But Is Defined By One's Actions.

I Think There Are Good Men And Women In All Decades. We've Grown Cynical. And Look At What We Do To All Our Heroes: Churchill, Fdr, Kennedy, They All Had Affairs. But Heroic Things Happen Every Day.

I Didn't Realize Toronto Was So Beautiful. Everywhere You Go You See Beautiful Architecture.

I'd Like To Put On Buckskins And A Ponytail And Go Underwater With A Reed, Hiding From The Indians... To Me, That's Sexy!

If You're Willing To Tell Somebody That You Love Them, Are You Also Willing To Say You're Sorry? You Need To, Even When You Think You're In The Right.

I Don't Have A Seller's Remorse About How I've Lived. I Am Cognizant Of What I Have Done, And Any Of Us Could Maybe Draw The Line Better. But I've Tried To Live Pretty Fearlessly.

You Have To Try To Dismiss The Loudness Of Cynicism. It's Certainly Going To Come.

Here's The Thing - The Accent Is Cool. It's Like A Girl With Big Breasts - They Get Your Attention First.

You Have To Decide If You're Going To Wilt Like A Daisy Or If You're Just Going To Go Forward And Live The Life That You've Been Granted.

If It's Going To Be Wrecked, I Want To Make Sure I Wreck It.

When I Played Robin Hood, I Knew The Great Role Was Alan Rickman's And It Didn't Bother Me. I Always Think That Leading Actors Should Be Called The Best Supporting Actors.

I Believe People Who Go Into Politics Want To Do The Right Thing. And Then They Hit A Big Wall Of Re-election And The Pettiness Of Politics. In The End, Politics Gets In The Way Of The Business Of People.

I Think If You Want To Make A Good Sports Movie, You've Got To Cut Down On The Sports. You Have To Make It About People. You Can't Try To Impress People With Your Knowledge And The X And O's And All The Details And The Technicalities.

I Split My Time Between Santa Barbara And Aspen. I Live On A Pretty Fast Horse.

When You Try To Portray People's Lives, You Try To Make Sure You Don't Portray Them As Clowns And That You Give Them A Level Of Dignity. You Don't Try To Change Their Persona, But You Try To Understand That They Had Unique Problems, Set In A Century That You Don't Live.

I Can't Say I Really See Much Difference Between My Son And Daughters Except That My Girls Will Occasionally Make Me A Sandwich And My Son Won't.

I Think Religion Is A Funny Thing Because, When You See Somebody Who Can Really Break It Down, Sometimes It Feels Foolish What You Believe.

You Can Spend Your Life Trying To Be Popular, And That's A Tricky Business. You Can Just Try To Be True To Yourself.

Be True To Yourself

I Wanted Very Much To Do Traffic And At One Point It Looked Like I Was Going To Work On It. And Then, Of Course, Catherine Zeta-jones Had Her Relationship With Michael Douglas And It Suddenly Didn't Happen.

I'm Glad Movies Aren't Going To Please Everybody, They Can't. But What They Have To Be Is Recognisable. I Don't Equate Myself With A Master Painter, But I Think You Can Recognise My Films.

It's Such A Cool Thing In Life To Get What It Is You Want. Most Of The Time We Don't, But Occasionally We Do.

I'm A Coach's Coaching Player. I Like To Be On The Floor. So, If The Coach Tells Me What To Do Out On The Floor, I Can Get It Done. I'm Really Comfortable Being Directed.

I'm Proud Of All The Movies I've Made. They're Not Sequels, They're Not Franchises. And The Reason I Pick My Films Carefully Is That I Don't Want To Spit On My Life. I Like To Think Of Myself As More Than That.

I've Been Evolving In My Stunt Career Stunts Have Always Had Their Place, And I Have To Measure Them Now. I've Done Things Where, If I Make A Mistake, I Could Die. You Really Need To Look At Each Thing. That Usually Is A Mechanical Failure. So, I Have Gone From Doing Everything, To Listening And Saying, "maybe I Shouldn't Do This."

If You Want To Make A Great Sports Movie, Don't Put Too Much Sports In It. It's The Backdrop. It's The Environment.

I Don't Take Much Stock In Other People's Opinions If I Think Something's Good.

I'm In A Position Where Whatever I Do, I Can Get My Head Handed To Me. I'm In A Position To Fail Because There Is A Whole Group Of People Out There Who Want Me To Fail. It's A Weird Vibe.

Broken People Say Awful Things And Do Incredibly Absurd Things.

I've Never Had That Fear Of Going Against The Grain.

I'm Not Defining My Band By Other People's Music, But By My Own.

I'm A Pretty Convenient Foil For A Lot Of People.

I Have A Tremendous Belief In People, Not That People Don't Let Me Down, Not That I Haven't Maybe Let Some People Down. But I Have A Tremendous Belief In People And In The Common Experience.

Common Experience

President Kennedy Was Willing To Go To War. He Was Not A Coward. The Man Had Been In War And So Had Ken O'donnell. He Was Ready To Protect This Nation, But He Was Not Ready For A Military Solution Just Because It Was Being Rammed Down His Throat.

I Think One Of The First Things To Go As People's Lives Start To Go Down Is Their Dreams. Dreams Should Be The Last Thing To Go - Dreams Are The Things You Go Down With. If You're Left Clinging To A Piece Of Driftwood In The Middle Of The Ocean, I'd Put On It The Word Dreams.

I Don't Feel The Need To Direct. I Tried To Get Other People To Direct Dances, But They Wouldn't Do It. They All Thought It Was Too Long. One Director Wanted To Cut The Civil War Sequence. Another Thought The White Woman Was Very Cliched.

I Had A Difficult Time Hearing My Own Inner Voice About What I Wanted To Be In This Life, Because There Were All These Perfect Examples Of What A Man Actually Does. The Notion Is That He Goes To College, Gets Married And Provides. That's What A Man Does.

There Are A Lot Of Things That Come To Bear On Movies Now That I Don't Think Are Good For Movies. They're Trying To Appeal To The Biggest Demographic And, When They Do That, You Sometimes Flatten Out.

I Think It's Hard For People To Suspend The Era They Live In And Understand The Decisions That Had To Be Made Often During The Western Frontier Era Were Life And Death. You Had To Be Resourceful And On Your Feet To Try To Figure Out Somebody. You Didn't Have The Benefit Of Knowing Who Somebody Was.

I've Had Moments In My Life Where It Was All Out On The Table. Everything I Had. I'm Okay With That, Because I Had A Strong Belief That What I Was Doing Other People Could Believe In It, Too, If I Can Get It Just Right.

There's Actually A Big Difference Between Story And Character. A Great Story Doesn't Make A Great Movie. A Great Script, Which Defines Its Moments And Characters Can Become A Great Movie. You Can Make A Movie That Makes A Lot Of Money And It May Or May Not Have Great Story Or Great Characters.

Westerns Aren't About The Gunfight, Even Though It Has To Be There At One Point. It's Not What They're About, At Least The Good Ones. It's About The Drama. It's About The Resourcefulness Of Men And Women.

I Don't Think I'd Have Been As Good As Bruce Was. He Was A Better Jfk Than I Would Have Been.

I Dream Of Big Things. I Work For The Small Things. If You're Going To Dream, You Might As Well Dream Big. A Lot Of That Came From My Mother. She Was Adamant About The Work Ethic---about How You Can't Just Dream Things.

I Was Always Listening To My Father More Than Anyone. I Was Always Afraid Of My Father More Than Anyone. But There's A Moment In Time Where Other Men In Your Life Can Have A Huge Impact.

One Person Doesn't Have To Shoulder All The Responsibility For Why A Film Does Or Doesn't Do Well.

My Whole Life Has Been Instinctual For Me. I Wouldn't Do Well In The Computer World.

You Know, What If Everybody's Wrong In Life? And So You Have To Live Your Life Yourself.

When I See My Children, And When I See The People Who Value Me, I Know How Lucky I Am.

It Was An Experience Of A Lifetime To Sit Only A Few Feet Away From Him [castro] And Watch Him Relive An Experience He Lived As A Very Young Man.

I Would Hate To See A Ufo. Because It Would Ruin My Life. I Would Have To Talk About It The Rest Of My Life, And Everybody In The Room Would Go, "poor Kevin." Because You Could Not Turn Your Back On The Idea That You Saw It.

I Will Never Forget What Happened Here Tonight.people I Went To School With Will Never Forget.

In America, Politicians Do Whatever To Get Re-elected, And A Lot Of Decisions That Were Being Made At That Time By Kennedy Were Certain Not To Get Him Re-elected.

Great Stories Don't Often Make Great Movies. Its' A Crafted Art Form.

I Haven't Tried To Buffer Myself. I Like Rolling The Dice.

The Movies Helped Define How I Should Be As A Person.

I Just Tried To Build On My Failures.

Conventional Wisdom Can Get Us Into So Much Trouble, Especially As Artists.

Conventional Wisdom

When I Do A Western, I Often Wonder What I Would Have Really Done In That Situation.

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