Quotes by Robin Williams
Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Robin Williams. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is often regarded as one of the best comedians of all time. Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982).
After his first starring film role in Popeye (1980), Williams starred in several critically and commercially successful films including The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), The Fisher King (1991), Patch Adams (1998), One Hour Photo (2002), and World's Greatest Dad (2009). He also starred in box office successes such as Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Good Will Hunting (1997), and the Night at the Museum trilogy (2006–2014). He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting. He also received two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.
On August 11, 2014, at age 63, Williams committed suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California. His widow, Susan Schneider Williams, as well as medical experts and his autopsy, attributed his suicide to his struggle with Lewy body disease.

You'll have bad times, but it'll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to.

I love running cross country....On a track, I feel like a hamster.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
I love running cross-country...You come up a hill and see two deer going, 'What the hell is he doing?' On a track I feel like a hamster.

If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.

Don't associate yourself with toxic people. It's better to be alone and love yourself than surrounded by people that make you hate yourself.

The hurricanes have been getting bigger and bigger. And they usually give them names that don't really inspire fear.

On stage you're free. You can say and do things that if you said and did any place else, you'd be arrested.

It's been a tough year... Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together.

I stopped drinking when I had children because I wanted to be awake and aware. I did not want to be going, you know, daddy loves you and then drop my head on the table. I do not want to miss anything that they do or say. It is important to me.

Terrible wars have been fought where millions have died for one idea -- freedom. And it seems that something that means so much to so many people would be worth having.

It's frightening and exhilarating. It's like combat. Look at the metaphors: You kill when it works; you die when it doesn't.

In California, we are a sixty percent Hispanic state, we elected an Austrian governor. Even old Nazis are going That's weird.

I love to ride my bike, which is great aerobics, but also just a great time for me to think, so it's like this terrific double bill.

We were talking briefly about cocaine... yeah. Anything that makes you paranoid and impotent, give me more of that!

Change is not popular; we are creatures of habit as human beings. 'I want it to be the way it was.' But if you continue the way it was there will be no 'is.'

Things that I see in the future. I see... it could be quite incredible if we can master a few problems, like the air and the water thing might be nice. I see governments dissolving these barriers are all falling down for economic reasons. They're all so interbound.

I prefer to be handcuffed at home. The idea of voice work to me is great fun, especially when it's a chance to do two different voices.

Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down. Sometimes it made me paranoid and impotent, but mostly it just made me withdrawn.

As intellectual as we think we are, you still trip, we still have human foibles, sexuality, all the different things to still make you aware of your humanity.

To be free. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.

If I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell.

Even when I did my Broadway show, I did 15 minutes no one had seen before, because that was the night that Michael Jackson protested about Al Sharpton bailing on him. I said, Wow, if that man bails on you, this must be really a lost cause.

Please, don't worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth. Life is fleeting.

What is this demilitarized zone? Whatever it is, I like it! Gets you on your toes better than a strong cup of cappuccino.

I got to ninth grade and there was wrestling, and I went, 'Wait a minute, this is fun.' Basically, it was a chance for a small kid like me to get a chance to wail on another small kid. I went, 'I love this.' The discipline of it was great. Plus, I really started to be good at it.

Sometimes with a comedy it's just having the instinct of how real you play it and what level you want it.

It's always great when you want scientific fact to get a really good science fiction writer to talk to you about it.

My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' - I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.'

I had to stop drinking alcohol, because I used to wake up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass.

I had my back waxed once by two women... and at one point they said, Do you mind if we take a break?

But if there's love, dear... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever.

After my training wheels, my first real bike was a Schwinn, and my first time out, I rode down a hill, didn't know how to stop, and ran right into a tree. So, that was a nice experience ... like realizing, oh, there are brakes!

I can see it now: Osama bin Laden goes up to the pearly gates where George Washington comes out, starts beating him and is then joined by 70 other members of the Continental Congress. Osama will say, Hey, wait! Where are my 71 virgins? And George will reply It's 71 Virginians, you asshole!

My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, If you want to do that, fine. When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, Fine, but study welding just in case.

How much more can you give? Other than, literally, open-heart surgery onstage? Not much. But the only cure you have right now is the honesty of going, this is who you are. I know who I am.

I met Jonah Lomu. I never knew how huge he was. I felt like a peasant in a Godzilla movie. 'Quickly! Tell the other villagers! We go now!'

The great thing about marriage is the idea of really getting to know someone. And really getting to know a woman is a life long task.

Just now when I said, I have a crush on you, you didn't say, no way loser. I'd rather have a lobotomy by a leper. That means something.

Jamie Kilstein is amazing and I will be spreading the word. He has the spark that energized my conscience. We need more comedians kicking it hard the way he does every night.

There was an old, crazy dude who used to live a long time ago. His name was Lord Buckley. And he said, a long time ago, he said, 'People -- they'r e kinda like flowers, and it's been a privilege walking in your garden.' My love goes with you.

My preference is live performance, because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
My preference is live performance. Because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn't matter what size and what club, whether it's 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It's live, it's symbiotic, you need it.

I bought one of the first Nintendo systems and brought that home, and we were playing 'Legend of Zelda' at the time, and it was addicting, and I was playing it for hours and hours and hours.

A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills, no, no. They'd make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
A woman wouldn't make a bomb that kills you. A woman would make a bomb that makes you feel bad for a while. That's why there should be a woman President. There'd never be any wars, just every twenty-eight days there'd be very intense negotiations.

Do you get the feeling with Sarah Palin, in high school, she was voted least likely to write a book and most likely to burn one?

Women are incredibly intuitive. If anybody on the planet is going to evolve to the next level, that telekinetic thing, women will.

Sometimes, keeping track of people. It's always a weird combination of worrying so much about the outside world, and not... you have to be more aware of the inner circle, the folks that matter.

I've never had a hankering to direct. I can perform, but I can't write on that level. I tend to go off on tangents. Directing also requires a kind of specificity and I don't have it.

You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the south? Nothing! Someone is losing a trailer.

We were totally opposite -- me coming from the West Coast and a junior college, and him Christopher Reeve from the hard-core Ivy League. He used to be the studly studly of all studlies, and I was the little fool ferret boy.

I knew Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were really talented. As actors, they were both studly young men, and they had great writers' chops.

Here's the best birth control in the whole world, if you really, if you have no pills, if you have no diaphragm, if you have no other form of contraception. Use it for ladies, if he comes at you with that little thing in his hand, just laugh at it. They can't deal with it, OK, it'll be gone.

She is not perfect. You are not perfect. The question is whether or not you are perfect for each other.

I try to make sense of things. Which is why, I guess, I believe in destiny. There must be a reason that I am as I am. There must be.

If you're that depressed, reach out to someone. And remember, suicide is a permanent solution, to a temporary problem.

If these pictures have anything important to say to future generations, it's this... I was here! I existed! I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world... to take my picture.

I don't have a college degree, and my father didn't have a college degree, so when my son, Zachary, graduated from college, I said, My boy's got learnin'!

And some people say Jesus wasn't Jewish. Of COURSE he was Jewish! 30 years old, single, lives with his parents, come on! He works in his father's business, his mom thought he was God's gift, he's Jewish! Give it up!

There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

Seize the day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.

Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions ... very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you'd see a Buddhist landscape fog.

Tweets? That stuff kills conversation. And people taking pictures with their phone or recording you, sometimes surreptitiously, is creepy. They come up and just start talking to you, and you can see the red light on their phone.

It is hard to find something where you can go off as much as I do in stand-up, but I think stand-up allows me that freedom where you can really go off and have a good time.

I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, 'Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?' And I said, 'Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?'

My favorite is when you go to Afghanistan and you meet the special forces guys, and they look like these heavily armed surfers. These guys are the best. You see guys dressed as full Afghans, but then wearing a Yankees hat.

In England, if you commit a crime, the police don't have a gun and you don't have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say 'Stop, or I'll say stop again.'

You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome.

The human body was designed by a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area ?

I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy
because they know what it's like to feel absolutely worthless
and they don't want anyone else to feel like that.

If you're basically having Frosted Flakes, and you're older than ten years old and it's after ten o'clock in the morning… I'm gonna guess: weed may be involved.

I have my morning coffee for two reasons. One, to kick start my brain, but number two, and more importantly, to jump start my colon.

The bad thing about being a famous comedian is that every now and then someone approaches me to tell an old joke. Don't tell me jokes -- I have that. People also say the weirdest things, sometimes sarcastic things, and even evil things. They like to provoke to get a reaction.

It's hard when you read an article saying bad things about you. It is as if someone is sticking a knife on your heart. But I am the harshest critic of my work.

I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was... a large Arctic region covered with ice.

You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous. And then you realize, no, actually if you take a break people might be more interested in you.

There's a show in America where all these people compete with ferrets, and they don't even do anything. They basically just hold them up, and if they don't bite you, they might win.

I think 'Dead Poets' was probably my favorite, just to get started with the idea of doing a movie that people treated as more than a movie.

You can start any 'Monty Python' routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.

Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet.

With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people.

For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I'm outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it's hardest to see.

The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'

I have an idea for a movie called 'The Walken Dead' which is about a town where, instead of zombies, everyone becomes Chris Walken.

I loved school, maybe too much, really. I was summa cum laude in high school. I was driven that way.

In 'The Secret Agent,' it's basically a character that was admired by Theodore Kaczynski, which is some fan mail you don't really want to open. This is a man who is a chemist and who specializes in making bombs and despises humanity.

Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work!

The improv, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's like open-field running.

When Jonathan Winters died, it was like, 'Oh, man!' I knew he was frail, but I always thought he was going to last longer. I knew him as being really funny, but at the same time, he had a dark side.

Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.

My style is bad white-boy dancing. I can do swing a little bit, but nothing beyond that. My solo dancing is sad. I use my arms, badly.

I loved running, but all of a sudden everything hurt so much. I started cycling when Zelda was born.