Quotes by Tom Hanks

The desert, when the sun comes up. I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.

I've made over 20 movies, and 5 of them are good.

The nature of motion capture is only going to work for certain films. It's not going to put any other type of movies out of business.

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Most of the stuff that I do is based on instincts. You end up kind of following a procedure that no one has ever explained to you, but I have figured it out over time.

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.

If not for John Adams leading a revolution against Great Britain...This would be the BAFTAs.

But television, when I was doing it, was all about scoring. You had to make these jokes bang, do whatever you could to make the material really pop. And if it didn't, there was something wrong with the material, or with you.

I have faith that a script is going to hit me like a ton of bricks, and when that happens, it's undeniable that I should choose the role.

Without question, we make choices -- and those choices have consequences. So can you control your own destiny? To a degree, certainly. Must you have faith in serendipity? Without question, you'd better. Otherwise you're foolish.

Hold the mirror up to nature. Human behavior is worthy of examination and celebration.

Help and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

A lot of people would flee from what they think is award-show cheesiness, and I don't. I often joke that my speeches are very personal moments that play themselves out in front of billions of people.

If I have no connection with the character, then it's all fake -- it's just blah, blah, blah.

In the early days you have a tendency to intellectualize, but you're really just trying to sound smart and score with the chicks.

I have gone through so many examinations of what a hero is, between the World War II stuff and the astronaut stuff.

I hope my kids understand that they're not operating in a normal world. And yet there are principles they have to adhere to that are normal -- like decency, choosing between right and wrong, and honesty. That's important stuff, whether you're flying first-class or not.

As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out.

I was never intimidated by change. I was like an army brat who had lived all around the world.

'Larry Crowne' is about as bummed out a human being as one can be when he loses his job. What he is able to enjoy is something that may not be available to everybody. But it's about the value of being willing to get and willing to give good advice.

Let's not pretend there isn't a huge industry driven by the choices made by editors and writers who decide what a story is.

Never give up because you never know what the tide will bring in the next day.

There's such an advantage to being involved in the day-to-day details of each other's lives. It's a marvelous fabric to exist in.

Dear God, thank you for my life. I forgot how big and wonderful it is.

The pleasure of working with somebody who's an actor is they don't waste time with stuff that doesn't matter.

Most people want to be able to go off and deal with their day -- stop in here, run errands there -- and when you can't do that, going out becomes a chore.

I'm lucky enough to be able to make only movies I'm interested in seeing. That has to be an instinctive thrust. The audience knows when you're faking it. They can hang any kind of moniker they want on me.

Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.

It's just as hard staying happily married as it is doing movies.

I know the Pope is opposed to the use of condoms. All I can say is, I am a spiritual man and I've been happily married for 21 years. I don't even know what a condom is anymore.

All directors should have to act and all actors should have to direct, so that they can understand all these key things that come into play with whether you can meet your day.

Larger-than-life characters make up about .01 percent of the world's population.

I love my family and I love my kids, but when the moments come, it's not as though you can just substitute your own life with what you're doing on film. You have to go to some other place where it's bigger than your own life.

The reason most of us go to the movies is to be involved in someone else's moral dilemma.

I view my wife as my lover, and we have a bond that goes beyond words like wife or girlfriend or mother.

A story has the opportunity to enlighten us, because as we connect the extraordinary moments on film with the ordinary moments of our lives, we ask ourselves, What am I going to do the next time I'm scared? What would it be like to say goodbye to my family for the last time?

But actors with political views are a dime a dozen.

I have a woman who teaches me what love is every day. Maybe that sentiment is possible to fake, but for me it's really true.

I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.

Saying no to something is actually much more powerful than saying yes.

I always wanted to play Lestrade of Scotland Yard 'cause he's a buffoon that gets to wear a uniform. I thought that would be fun.

Believing is seeing and seeing is believing.

Being politically correct means always having to say you're sorry. Believe me, the power and pleasure and the emotion of this moment is a constant speed of light.

If you can feel like a good man in your 40s, you can feel like a better man in your 50s, a Superman in your 60s, and maybe a Spider-Man in your 70s.

Are you crying? There's no crying. There's no crying in baseball.

Directing is a constant test of your communicative powers. You're constantly trying to explain people your vision of what you want and steer these tiny little details into a cohesive thing.

In the creative process you come to loggerheads and you just have to keep the process moving forward, even if that requires jumping on a plane and flying to London. It's a good thing it's fun, otherwise it would be too much work.

As a boy Id 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.

I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

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.

Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there's less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what's the fun in eating anything you want to?

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.

It's not a mid-life crisis. It's a mid-life disaster. A mid-life crisis is when you wake up with everything and you go I have everything but I'm still unhappy.

Repertory theater is all about being part of the whole, one of the many colors in this vast palette.

An animatic is a process where every voice and every sound effect is added to rough animated drawings and it lasts exactly as long as the final movie. So you actually get to go into a screening room with the rest of the cast and you get to see it all at the same time.

There was nothing to react to except wind and trees in Cast Away. It was like making a silent movie.

I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.

All that most parents hope is that their children are happy, funny, well adjusted, and have a passion for something in their lives. What would negate everything is if the next generation that we're responsible for has a passionless existence. And that's cause for occasional sleepless nights.

I know how the Academy Awards works: It's a card game, and I'm in the toss-up category.

Even the simplest choice can make a jaw-dropping difference in our world.

I don't ask for much. I don't ask to be rich, and I don't ask to be famous, and I don't ask to play center field for the New York Yankees. I just want to get married and have a wife, and a house, and I want to have a kid, and I want to go see him be a tooth in the school play!

There's no substitute for a great love who says, 'No matter what's wrong with you, you're welcome at this table.'

The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are.

It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together ... and I knew it.

The prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the actual physical one.

Houston, we have a problem.

I don't follow football, I just love the name Aston Villa. Here in England you have other footballing entities like Manchester and Arsenal and Chelsea.

Mama always said, dying was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't.

Loneliness is to be avoided, solitude is to be sought.

The power of the individual is as powerful as the universe is infinite.

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.

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

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.

For some people, I will be Forrest Gump for the rest of my life. But that's OK; that's a good thing.

I am who I am, and I think I have a good nature, by and large. But if someone takes advantage of that good nature, well then, you know, I'm not that nice a guy.

My doctor said, 'If you can weigh what you weighed in high school, you'll essentially be healthy and not have Type 2 diabetes.' Well, I'm gonna have Type 2 diabetes, because there is no way I can weigh as much as I did in high school.

I did a 'Love Boat!' And based on my trip on the 'Love Boat,' I said, 'I'd just as soon not do 'Fantasy Island.'

One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.

It just so happens that my body type and my lifestyle gives me a preclusion for high blood sugars.

Yeah! I got type-two diabetes! I'm sure there's going to be some media scandal now, saying I got it because I gained and lost weight for movie parts or something -- but I doubt that.

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.

If you look at romantic comedies as pieces of commerce, the audience is looking for wish fulfillment.

Human beings do things for a reason, even if sometimes it's the wrong reason.

If they could offer up a way to go to the moon that wouldn't kill you, I'd sign up.

Acting still rings my bell as much as it did in high school. Plus, I can now indulge my interests as a producer as well. My work is more fun than fun but, best of all, it's still very scary. You are always walking some kind of high wire.

No journalist has ever been in my house and no photographs have ever been taken of where I live. I don't parade my family out for display, which is the way it will stay.

And I'm not apolitical -- I'm very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it's nobody's business unless you're over at my house having dinner.

I'm not interested in doing something edgy with a capital E just so everyone knows, 'Oh, OK, now he's showing us he can do edgy.'

There was a period of time in Los Angeles when I wondered if I was just going to lose everything.