Heath Ledger quotes:

In my opinion, New York City police officers are brave.

Anyone that has a job that takes them away from home, I think, can understand the difficulties in maintaining consistency, not only with your family and those you love but with your friends.

If you make decisions based upon people's reactions or judgments then you make really boring choices.

I'm in control of my life, not anyone in Hollywood.

It's odd, that's why I don't like telling people I played field hockey. It's real big in Australia for guys. But I say I played in America, and everybody goes, 'Oh, you girl!'

May I ask your name, my lady? Or perhaps angels have no names, only beautiful faces.

Had I listened to my agent, I'd be running around in tights, climbing buildings and stuff.

It's kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn't be doing it and I don't know how to do it and I'm going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.

The Australian sense of humor is very dry, sarcastic, and very undercover. Like if I tell any jokes in America, people just think I'm serious! So I just quit telling any jokes whatsoever.

From 18 to 22, I was alone, living in L.A. with a bunch of friends, partying.

I only do this because I'm having fun. The day I stop having fun, I'll just walk away.

If you are just safe about the choices you make, you don't grow.

I'm not good at future planning. I don't plan at all. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't have a day planner and I don't have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future.

It's a little uncomfortable doing love scenes in armor, but, you know, when the heat's on, the heat's on.

I am not a public speaker and never will be.

I didn't want to raise my child in Hollywood.

My mom and my dad never pushed me into performing. They never prohibited me from trying anything, or being anything. They never restricted me in any way. For which I'll be forever grateful.

I apologize for my terrible interview skills. I wasn't prepared to expose stories about something so special and wonderfully private that is happening in my life. I guess a part of me wishes that I'd never have to and that maybe I could protect this special time. I was dreaming.

There's nothing like working with your mates - it's the way it should be, as far as I'm concerned.

I love acting and I have a lot of fun.

If you're just safe about the choices you make, you don't grow.

I never took an acting class, so I've made all my mistakes on film.

In the birthing process, you come out just realizing how stupid and weak men are! I mean, I might as well not have been in there, we're useless!

The first memory I have, anyway, I guess - I think it was my second birthday and the cake came out with the candles and I was very excited and I was, like, "Oh! A cake!" and then my cousin blew out the candles. I was so disappointed. It just broke my heart. And so that's stamped in my brain.

I'm still a kid. I'm like six years old. But it's just a matter of wanting to get up, it's just a big journey. I felt like when I left home that I was on a journey, and I still am.

I apologize for my terrible interview skills.

In order not to hold a frame with someone, you have to be intimidated by them.

I believe acting truly is harnessing the power of belief.

I feel like I'm wasting time if I repeat myself.

I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices - it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath - someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts

I'm not a big fan of western movies and I really don't like cowboy-indian movies. I have never watched them.

I generally don't think most situations can be labeled as black or white.

In a way, I was spoon-fed, if you will, a career. It was fully manufactured by a studio that believed that they could put me on their posters and turn me into their bottle of Coca-Cola, their product.

It can be a little distressing to have to overintellectualize yourself.

I've never figured out who 'Heath Ledger' is on film: 'This is what you expect when you hire me, and it will be recognizable.'

If you spend all day on horseback, and you hop off, you walk around like you still have a horse between your legs. And it affects your shoulders. They fall.

I don't have that much forward planning about what I want to do next, or in the future.

You learn more about yourself through your child, I guess.

I never want to feel like I've achieved my goal. It's like Chinese farmers. They never admit that it's a good season. They feel like they'll be punished.

When I first started acting, I was just crap.

I like to do something I fear.

[I'm] an extremely private dude and all this is happening so damn quick. I really haven't had any time to rationalize it. But it's nothing that I'm going to let freak me out or take control of me or my thoughts or my real life.

[The Joker is a] psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy. ... Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.

A little fight in you. I like that.

But the paparazzi are quite malicious and vocal and really rude, ... And they camped outside of my house, so I started throwing eggs at them, lobbing them at rocks next to them.

Do I really look like a guy with a plan?

Does it depress you? To know just how alone you really are?

Don't let anyone ever make you feel you don't deserve what you want..

Growing up in Australia, you never feel like you're going to live beyond that place. You wake up and you go to the beach, and you do your homework. You're just a kid.

I do keep pre-occupied.

I feel like I've never been in a film that people have liked before.

I have never had great expectations of my performance or of a film. I try not to think about the outcome. If you look that far ahead, it sort of taints your choices as an actor. I try as hard as I can to believe that no one is ever going to see it and that it's not even a movie. Then you can allow yourself to bare more. Then, once a project is done, I tend to forget about it until it comes out.

I like to see films that come out with lower budgets because you're forced into using your imagination. You don't have everything at your fingertips. You have to create it from scratch.

I like to set up obstacles and defeat them.

I love acting. Oh, God, I love it. But all this fame and all this bullshit attention. I'm not supernatural. I've done nothing extremely special to deserve the position. It happens every couple of years, and it's happened to hundreds of people before me.

I never really cared much for Hollywood or movies. But the curiosity for filmmaking, and expanding myself as an actor and my curiosity for people and portraying them, just has grown. And that's from simply being involved in the industry. But it was never a goal of mine as a kid.

I only do this because I'm having fun. The day I stop having fun, I'll just walk away. I wasn't going to have fun doing a teen movie again.... I don't want to do this for the rest of my life....I don't want to spend the rest of my youth doing this in this industry. There's so much I want to discover.

I think the most common cause of insomnia is simple; its loneliness.

I think your personal evolution runs hand in hand with your professional evolution. Performance and the person you are kind of grow simultaneously.

I wasn't going to have fun doing a teen movie again.

If having true love and love that is expressive and free outside of work affects a project where you have to be restrained and in denial and fixed and closed off. This doesn't mean you go out and just destroy your love outside of your life and kind of mirror your movie.

I'm born to be a father. And I've been looking forward to this all my life.

I'm just not one of those naturally funny, relaxed actors who enjoy the spotlight and are so good at it.

I'm kind of addicted to moving.

I'm sure drugs and alcohol perhaps would inspire new thoughts, but it's certainly not something that I use as a tool or a mechanism to create.

I'm very comfortable with horses. I love horses and I have grown up around farm-hands. There's something very universal about anyone who's on horseback night and day. When you get off that horse, you are still walking as if there's still a horse between your legs.

Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos, I'm an agent of chaos , and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair.

It's rare that there's a role that requires an Australian accent.

I've never had high expectations of my work and I certainly am not going to let that plague my thoughts. I'm just going to continue to choose what feels right for me at the time and go with it.

Let's put a smile on that face!

Most of the time you don't even know they're there. Now, that's the scary thing. It's really strange and invading, but I'm still working it all out. I try to not let it bother me. And if I want to swim naked in my pool, I'm still going to do it. I certainly don't want to feel that I have to change everything in my life that I do to cater to them. I just won't let it happen.

My life is together, both professionally and socially.

My nervous energy is usually the easiest form of energy to tap into.

Never give up on what makes you smile

Nobody panics when things go "according to plan". Even if the plan is horrifying!

People generally express more in between their sentences when they're not speaking. Words are usually there to disguise who someone is or what they're feeling.

See I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve.

Some people just wanna see the world burn

The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules!

The Oscars are a really strange concept to me, that films and acting can be competing against each other. We're not running the same race. It's like we're all doing different sports in fact.

The reason that you dance and sing is to make the audience feel like they're dancing and singing. As long as you're having fun with it and giving it 100 percent, they're gonna feel that.

There is no Yoda-there's no one who points you in the right direction. You've got to figure that out by yourself.

Want know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not one bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me, and he says, 'why so serious?' He comes at me with the knife. 'Why so serious?!'. He sticks the blade in my mouth. 'Let's put a smile on that face!' And why so serious?

We're actors at the end of the day. I don't take it home with me. My experience outside of work, I love... when I hear wrap, it's the most exciting part of my day. I'm the first to have my make-up off, in the car, out. I've gotta go home. I want to get back to my life. I love it back there.

When anything is blocking my head or there's worry in my life, I just go sit on Mars or something and look back here at Earth. All you can see is this tiny speck. You don't see the fear. You don't see the pain. You don't see thought. It's just one solid speck. Then nothing really matters. It just doesn't.

You have to be willing to be manipulated in the first place because you can either recognize that in your director and then fight it because you don't trust them, but I'm not going to let them manipulate me. Or you think they're on to something and that they're manipulating something out of you which is interesting and new.

You know, I'm not in a hurry, and everybody else in Hollywood - particularly agents and managers - they're all in a hurry.

You see, in their last moments people show you who they really are.

I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you stranger.

I thought, I need to be more cautious about my choices - it reflects on who I am.

I do think that drugs and alcohol have been glorified and exoticized in such a way that it gets into the art world.

I have a lot of great distractions outside of acting.