Quotes by Samuel L. Jackson

Anyone who tells you money can't buy happiness never had any.

People go to movies on Saturday to get away from the war in Iraq and taxes and election news and pedophiles online and just go and have some fun. I like doing movies that are fun.

I get paid all day, every day, which is almost too much for a sensitive artist.

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides.

I walk the streets, take the train, it's real simple. Some actors create their own mythology: 'Oh, I'm so famous I can't go places, because I created this mythology that I'm so famous I can't go places.'

The only thing I've kind of missed is finding a really good western that I want to do, because I watched westerns a lot.

You know me. It's my duty to please that booty.

I've never considered myself a comedian. I'm a comedic actor.

I'm sure there are a lot of Italians who refer to themselves as goombahs and greaseballs and whatever. That's what people do. It gives them a sort of familiarity that other people don't have.

I love coming in for quick pops. You come in. You score. You leave. You're on the golf course. It's great. You don't carry any story.

Certain comedians work with certain actors; like Adam Sandler worked with Jack Nicholson.

I'm pretty focused on what I do. I think directing is a very specific talent, and I'm not real big on putting puzzles together, which is basically what a film is.

If you are a Jedi, just understand something: people are going to be chasing you. The Jedi Council of every city you enter is going to be chasing you. I've been accosted by the Jedi Council in Rio and everywhere else.

I've made a way to allow myself to do big films, small films, dramas, comedies, action films, horror films, or whatever interests me, as a movie-goer. I like watching myself in movies. I want to choose movies that allow me to enjoy myself, the way that I want to entertain myself.

Not everything's made to win an Academy Award.

I don't get the great story line, action, mystery scripts; I get comedies. And relationship comedies are what I do. It's what attracted me to American Pie.

I've consequently played a lot of different cops from a lot of different kind of law enforcement agencies.

I never did one thing right in my life, you know that? Not one. That takes skill.

I have a lot more energy than I used to have. I sleep better. I like the way I look in my clothes better. I don't cramp as much. I exercise better. I think my circulation has gotten better.

Just because people don't trust people doesn't mean they don't like them. There are lots of paranoid people in the world. You figure out their personalities and make them work.

I never thought I'd be working with Sam L.Jackson .That's about as good as it gets.

I'm as serious as a heart attack.

I used to like watching Helen Mirren's early films, because she was always naked. It's titillating.

Girl, don't make me put my foot in your ass.

My ass may be dumb, but I ain't no dumbass.

What kills me is that everybody thinks I like Jazz.

I'm a character actor and that's what I do. All the roles that I've had have been mainly support roles, because character actors don't usually get the lead in movies. It rarely happens.

Take a stand for what's right. Raise a ruckus and make a change. You may not always be popular, but you'll be part of something larger and bigger and greater than yourself. Besides, making history is extremely cool.

Everybody likes an extraordinary person or likes to think that they would be great with a superpower in an ordinary world.

Jackson doesn't bother to read the scripts anymore. He just checks to make sure he has one loud scene where he gets to shout, then cashes the paycheck.

The Man was a case where it was a funny role teamed up with another actor. It's a great teaming. And the role was a bigger role. It wasn't so much that it was a co-starring role. This is not a new direction. I'm not saying, 'No. I'm only now co-starring.' It just happens it's a co-starring role.

You just let people do what they do and look at them and give them enough rope until they do what you thought they were going to do... which is screw you over.

Michelle Obama is Superwoman. What can't she do? That's why people love her. She can be on the Supreme Court and anywhere else she wants. She can be the president. She's history and she'll stay history because she is so amazingly smart and together.

It was fun to be in a scene again with my wife LaTanya Richardson. We used to do plays together all the time. We hadn't really worked together since Losing Isaiah 1995. That was kind of early on in both of our cinematic careers. Things have changed a little bit since then.

I sit at home and read books. I watch movies. I watch television. I go and play golf. I don't go to nightclubs. I don't go out to dinner that often. I'm not a big party guy.

I read, watch television, watch movies, hang out with family. I like my clothes and I have great cars, and I drive those. But for most people, it's like, That's boring. You don't club? You don't party?

You ain't got but one life. You ought to live it the way you want.

There are a lot of little kids, amazingly enough, that see me. Their parents go, 'That's Mace Windu.' They go, 'Oh, right. Well, you know, Jedi can fall from really high places. So you're probably not dead, but you only have one hand now.' That's good. There's hope.'

We need to change America's image round the world. America has lost some lustre in terms of how folks aspire to be like us.

Those are the rules. To improvise in a movie with other people, when they're following a script, everybody has to know what's going on. I think a line or two we might change. Certainly, I do. But I wouldn't call it improvising. I'd call it fudging the lines.

Any changes that I made to my line, I asked if I could make them, which I do in every movie. So far everybody's been gracious enough to say yes. The only improvising I do is in the movies I do with Chris Guest, which is what we do.

I tend to play characters that I can infuse with certain kinds of humour. Even the baddest guy can be funny in his own particular way. I want the audience to engage with the character on some deeper level so that they leave the cinema still thinking about him.

I hope Obama gets scary in the next four years, 'cuz he ain't gotta worry about getting re-elected.

The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform.

I act the way I talk. It probably comes from starting out in Second City, improvisational theater. I can go from take to take. I'll ask for another take.

I'm actually very ordinary, except people get to pay their money to come watch me work. The same way that we go to McDonald's.. we don't care about the guy behind the counter, but if he was doing something special, we'd pay our money to go watch him cook that hamburger.

Young guys don't tend to want to portray people who have frailties or are less than macho.

I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!

It's always interesting to play characters who are vulnerable and how you display that vulnerability and what it's going to mean to people who watch it.

If there's an interesting role that comes up as a great support role in a decent picture, then I'll do that.

There are tons of stories out there. I read a lot of scripts on a weekly basis. I'm looking for stories to tell and stories that I hope will be interesting to an audience.

I look at myself as an audience member. I still love movies, and I still go and sit in the back of the big dark room with everybody else, and I want the same thrill.

I actually think I have an audience member's sensibility about going to the movies.

Not everybody goes to movies to get their life changed.

I grew up watching those blaxploitation movies. Ron O'Neal, Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Pam Grier. For the first time, I saw 'The Negro' get one over on 'The Man.'

I've been fortunate to be in films that are classic, that are going to be around.

If you have an opportunity to use your voice you should use it.

Long Kiss Goodnight has a huge cult following. They could make another version of that movie right now and make a lot of money.

I'm not as angry as I used to be. But I can get in touch with that anger pretty quickly if I feel my space is being invaded or somebody is not treating me with the respect that I think I want.

People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one's soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you.

I guess the worst day I have had was when I had to stand up in rehab in front of my wife and daughter and say 'Hi, my name is Sam and I am an addict.'

All movies aren't fun; some are hard work. You try to do something and convey a set of emotions that have to do with some real life kind of stuff.

The best advice that was given to me was that I had to be 10 times smarter, braver and more polite to be equal. So I did.

When I'm not working, I like to play golf.

I love comic books and I love anime.

Because of where I come from, I never thought I'd see in my life a black candidate running for President.

I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger.

I just always knew that I lived in two worlds. There was the world of my house and community, but to make my way in that white world I had to modify the way I spoke and acted. I had to sometimes not make direct eye contact.

We've come a long way in our thinking, but also in our moral decay. I can't imagine Dr. King watching the 'Real Housewives' or 'Jersey Shore.'

I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people -- because they look like them... That's American politics, pure and simple.

I'm a good son, a good father, a good husband -- I've been married to the same woman for 30 years. I'm a good friend. I finished college, I have my education, I donate money anonymously. So when people criticize the kind of characters that I play on screen, I go, 'You know, that's part of history.'

I've never been to jail. I've never been arrested. I've never been locked up.

My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter's life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of the rationale behind us staying married for 30 years.

I did 'Formula 51' because I got to run around Liverpool in a kilt, with golf clubs.

I never had one beer. If I bought a six-pack of beer, I kept drinking till all six beers were gone. You have to have that kind of understanding about yourself. I haven't had a drink now in 12 years.

I kind of realize that I have a tendency to choose the kind of films I watched when I was a kid and would go home and pretend with my friends that we were in those movies after we saw them.

It wasn't until I let go of the idea of the brass ring that it showed up, and fortunately for me, it coincided with getting clean.