Kevin costner

You're just as good, and if you work harder, you can be better and you can be more than you think you can.

I'm getting those familiar feelings, and I'm just going to enjoy the process of getting to know someone again.

I think there's true drama in the formation of everything that we know and are standing on the shoulders of.

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 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.

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 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.

It's nice to be wanted in almost any capacity.

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.

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.

I don't think I ever take huge risks, though I'm not scared of doing so.

What is it you want? That's a question that we all get posed sometimes internally and sometimes externally.

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.

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 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've never had that fear of going against the grain.

Life's better when it's fun. Boy, that's deep, isn't it?

I like being around people that mean what they say.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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'm a 'what if' person. I have always felt that failure was a completely underrated experience. I have taken blows. I have had high moments. But I don't think the blows have ever hardened me. My enthusiasms are still big.

I am a really writer-oriented actor.

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.

There's a moment in time where kids really don't want to hear anything from their parents.

Sometimes we worry about the things that you know that matter the least and don't focus on the things that matter the most.

I try to please myself. I don't try to anticipate what people want to see.

When I do a Western, I often wonder what I would have really done in that situation.

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.

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 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 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.

I don't give up. I'm a plodder. People come and go, but I stay the course.

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.

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.

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'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?

You can spend your life trying to be popular, and that's a tricky business. You can just try to be true to yourself.

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.

I don't take much stock in other people's opinions if I think something's good.

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.

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.

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 didn't realize Toronto was so beautiful. Everywhere you go you see beautiful architecture.

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.

I work for the public, for the people who are paying to go to the cinema, rather than for the critics.

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.

Money isn't a major motivating force in my life. Nor is my profession. There are other things that I care more about than being an actor.

I like when my face tingles, when the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

I will never forget what happened here tonight.people I went to school with will never forget.

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 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.

Conventional wisdom can get us into so much trouble, especially as artists.

You have to try to dismiss the loudness of cynicism. It's certainly going to come.

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.

It sounds vain, but I could probably make a difference for almost everyone I ever met if I chose to involve myself with them either professionally or personally.

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 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.

You can be as you choose to be. It's an act of discipline sometimes, but it can be done.

Conventional wisdom is so scary because what if everybody's wrong?

I don't go against the grain because I'm a contrary person.

Here's the thing - the accent is cool. It's like a girl with big breasts - they get your attention first.

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.

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.

Lincoln was the greatest speaker and he was ridiculed for how he looked, you know?

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.

You just do the things that you love and see if other people can like them too.

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.

I split my time between Santa Barbara and Aspen. I live on a pretty fast horse.

If it's going to be wrecked, I want to make sure I wreck it.

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.

If you don't understand your limitations you won't achieve much in your life.

I'm not defining my band by other people's music, but by my own.

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.

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.

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 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.

I've been around where I knew other actors were going to steal the scene, and I don't compete with them.

True movies will never be measured by how much they make - they'll be measured by how they make you feel.

I've always known that I'm a little out of vogue.

I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.

I don't like definitions. I like four-hour movies.

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.

Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get.

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.

A good idea is something like an emotion, you just can't keep it in.

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.

I just tried to build on my failures.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Failure doesn't kill you... it increases your desire to make something happen.

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.

We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.

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.

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.

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've always felt that failure was a completely underrated experience.

There's nothing more noble than a father and mother making an opportunity for their child, knowing that their life is gonna be hard. There's something incredibly heroic about that.

I wouldn't do the movie unless I thought it had a chance to be good.

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 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?'

When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

Broken people say awful things and do incredibly absurd things.

I'm a pretty convenient foil for a lot of people.

You're this rat in the American maze, working your way towards the cheese, which is a job.

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.

When I see my children, and when I see the people who value me, I know how lucky I am.

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.

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.

Field of Dreams is probably our generation's It's A Wonderful Life.

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.

I wait and take on projects that I think can work.

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.

One person doesn't have to shoulder all the responsibility for why a film does or doesn't do well.