John Travolta quotes:

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  • I think, for sure, 'Saturday Night Fever' and 'Pulp Fiction' were kind of bookends for - or the pillars of - my career.

  • I wouldn't trade my career with anybody's. I'd trade a few movies with Tom Hanks - 'Apollo 13 and 'Forrest Gump' - but other than that, I love my career.

  • As you get older, you have to force yourself to have new dreams. For instance, I've been flying for 37 years, but now teaching others to fly is interesting for me. Sometimes you have to find new angles on life to keep you interested, like sharing successes and inspiring and helping others.

  • I have to believe there's some other life force out there. I don't know in what form. But we can't have all these galaxies and universes without something going on.

  • Something can happen in your life, and you might want and need something different from your spouse. Most people forget that you have to create relationships. The allure of the first years settles down, and at that moment, you better start creating it; otherwise, you're going to lose out.

  • Sports, entertainment and aviation are three of the most exciting professions in the world; you are dealing with the same magnitude.

  • There are unwanted emotions and pain that goes along with any birth.

  • I don't believe in regrets; I believe your future is in your tomorrows.

  • People make judgments about Scientology, but often they don't know what they're talking about.

  • I don't want to create controversy; I just have an opinion on things, and there is nothing wrong with stating your opinion if you are asked. Everyone wants that right, and because you are famous doesn't mean you have less of a right.

  • The good and wonderful thing about my whole career is that I've always felt that the audience, if I do it well, will track wherever I go, whether it's President or a lawyer or bad guy or good.

  • I'm from a working-class family. We didn't have a lot, but we had the arts. You're talking to a guy who is making a living at doing what he loves doing - acting, singing and dancing. So any career ups and downs were not that significant to me; the only things that really powerfully impinged on me were my losses, and there were many in my life.

  • A lot of actors never talk to other actors about how they're doing things, or why. I think it's important to share the way you're thinking.

  • I probably have some sort of chocolate five times a week. There's definitely a change it does to the chemistry of the body. It's my favorite feeling. I live for it.

  • When I was a very little boy, I lived underneath the air pattern of LaGuardia airport in New York and I watched the planes fly to their destinations. I was in love with the design of these airplanes.

  • I love watching old movies, and some of the holiday-themed ones are really great. I also have a bizarre thing that I'll do: I'll turn on a foreign-language TV station, usually Spanish, and watch a whole show, riveted, even though I have no idea what anyone is saying. I don't know why I find that so addictive, but I do!

  • My kids probably stay up too late. My wife goes to bed around 3 A.M., and I follow around 7 A.M., but it works.

  • Most people forget that you have to create relationships. The allure of the first years settles down, and at that moment, you better start creating it; otherwise, you're going to lose out.

  • I've always slightly regretted not taking up Chicago.

  • It's easier to be responsible for the decisions that you've made yourself than for the ones that other people have made for you.

  • When I say 'yes' to a movie it's usually because, to a greater or lesser extent, it's because I'm enthusiastic about the character. How well that character ultimately comes off depends on a lot of things: your relationship with the director and so on. But at first, you're on board because you think you can do something with it.

  • I'm realizing that for so much of my life I had an older viewpoint; I saw things as an older person. That's common among change-of-life babies. So I have this dichotomy where I'm either, like, super young or feel like I'm coming to the end of my years.

  • At fifty you realize that you are no longer a kid. I ignored forty. It was like I was almost at middle age. Maybe it's the baby boomer thing. But undeniably, I am a man. I have to accept [mortality].

  • I've always thought of, of a relationship with an actor to an audience as a marriage, you know. And a story, you know. And there are ups and downs, and you work through them, and you work with them.

  • I'm definitely working class, and I still believe in those values. I know that losing everything would not be an unfamiliar feeling. Meaning, if you don't have it anymore, you didn't have it to begin with.

  • I'm willing to look my own nightmare on film, but if it endangers my life, then I'm willing to put my life before movies.

  • I was always a character actor, basically, that sometimes looks like a leading man.

  • It's the interviewee's job to know that his privacy is going to be invaded on some level. Otherwise, you are better off not doing the interview.

  • You can't control the quality of projects that are coming to you, so if you get several in a row that are quality, you take them.

  • I think aerobatic flying is athletic. I don't do aerobatic flying, but I would put that in a category of a sport. I would put regular flying in the category of an art or machine-type thing.

  • I was just thinking of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and how young they were when they died. I would like to be a pop icon who survives. I would like to be a living icon.

  • I don't recall the so-called devilish things I do. But there are considerable amounts.

  • Princess Diana was a nice dancer because she had confidence. In fact, when we danced together she started to lead, and I looked her in eye and went, 'No, you have to let me lead.' So I grabbed her around the waist and we were off to the races.

  • I've always thought that as long as I did the right things and had the right intentions, everything would fall into place.

  • I love fun movies that also have something to say. They tend to stay with me, always.

  • He lives with his creativity in high gear.

  • The upper echelon of the movie industry is easier to deal with and the work is much easier to accomplish because of this generosity of spirit and confidence that they instill in the group around them.

  • I had a bike the first time I moved to L.A. I had a Honda and I got around on that. But I'd never ridden Harleys.

  • I believe in love and marriage, but not necessarily with the same person

  • I believe L. Ron Hubbard resolved the human mind, and in resolving it he has also resolved human pain - that's what I really think has happened here.

  • Life is overwhelming. Life is not easy. Life is tough. And you need something that really works and helps you actually, not promises to help you, then fail.

  • Dancing's part of my soul. I enjoy it, it makes people happy, and it makes me happy.

  • From the time I was a kid, I had a wanderlust. I always wanted to travel, in any form - plane, train, boat, car, motorcycle. So I think that if I ever do have a mid-life crisis, I have all the toys to refer to quickly.

  • There are two areas where you can't stop people misbehaving: eating and sex

  • Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.

  • Money and power come as a byproduct of things well done.

  • If you are going into show business for money and power, forget it! It won't happen. You don't go for that first.

  • It is about getting a sense of integrity about issues. That was was my enlightenment over it and knowing that I had a safe place to go to handle anything in life.

  • Playing President Clinton (in Primary Colors) was risky and challenging. Some people thought Saturday Night Fever was risky, because no one had danced in movies for years.

  • When I was 8, I got a little toy propeller plane: You could turn it on and the people disappeared from the little windows and stewardesses appeared, and it ran along the ground.

  • One of the things about the whole Harley motorcycle culture is that it's a little bit renegade.

  • You just activated a nuclear warhead, my friend.

  • I'm not big on sequels; I've done them, but I like doing little things that have their own timelessness to them, classic type things, and then you go onto something new.

  • For a while, I was saying 'no' way too often. I turned down 'An Officer and A Gentleman,' 'Splash' and 'Midnight Express.' I could name you tons more. I would go off and experience life instead of working - I was learning to fly jets, went on an African safari, sailed the Caribbean - which wasn't necessarily bad.

  • The first thing I ever rode when I was a kid was a motorcycle, so I knew how to drive a motorcycle before a car.

  • I've ridden a bike since I was 18. It was the first transportation when I came to Hollywood because it was inexpensive and easy for me.

  • Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.

  • I'm a jet jockey and I've always escaped ever since I was a kid. I've always been a weekend type runaway person. Work hard, play hard type thing. It's not been a mid-life thing at all, it's been a habit because I think it changes your environment and how you feel even if it's for the day. It's a good thing.

  • So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna do something really outrageous, I'm gonna tell the truth.

  • Oh yeah, dancing's part of my soul. I enjoy it, it makes people happy, and it makes me happy.

  • I wouldn't trade my career with anybody's. I'd trade a few movies with Tom Hanks - 'Apollo 13' and 'Forrest Gump' - but other than that, I love my career.

  • I've always had an innate ability to dance, but I'm not as spiffy as those cinema legends like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

  • My son was autistic, and he suffered from seizure disorder every 5 to 10 days. He would suffer a seizure that would last 45 seconds to a minute and sleep for 12 hours.

  • I am not at all computer literate in real life. I haven't yet found a reason to be. Once I find a reason why I need to be on the Internet, then I will be.

  • I think my friend Tom Hanks knows me. He understands me very well. He's always had a sort of parental feeling toward me. He knows I'm a big mush ball, which is just part of my personality.

  • I have fame on the level of a Marilyn Monroe or an Elvis Presley, but part of the reason I didn't go the way they did was because of my beliefs. People make judgments about Scientology, but often they don't know what they're talking about.

  • Playing a bad guy is always a freeing experience, because you don't have the same envelope of restrictions as you have playing a good guy. Good guys restrain themselves; they kind of have their moral fiber cut out for them in varying degrees.

  • I was suited for fame, and I mean that in the most non-egocentric way. I don't mind gearing my life towards privacy. It's my nature.

  • I don't mind gearing my life towards privacy. It's my nature.

  • Scientology is one of the least homophobic religions. It's not very interested in the body at all.

  • The good and wonderful thing about my whole career is that I've always felt that the audience, if I do it well, will track wherever I go, whether it's President or a lawyer or bad guy or good. All I have to do is execute the material enough where they buy into it. I've had the great luxury of the audiences accepting that.

  • And now after all this time I finally figured out how to trap him... I will become him.

  • I played football in the ninth and 10th grade. I looked a lot like Joe Namath, so I think my looks got me there more than my abilities.

  • It's hard to make a cultural phenomenon every time.

  • Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity.

  • You feel alive to the degree that you feel you can help others.

  • Acting is a mix of luck and choice. I got lucky.

  • I am very healthy. Career wise, even old men get to be in movies. So as long as I am healthy, I will continue to make movies.

  • Your life starts to take shape at 30. You don't have to make excuses for who you are anymore.

  • Never say anything unless you have to.

  • I have 12 paintings of Kaufman art. He is an amazing artist.

  • People really need to take time and read a book, you know, that's my advice. You could read 'A New Slant on Life,' you could read 'Dianetics.' And I think if you really read it, you'll understand it, but unless you do, you'll speculate. And I think that's a mistake to do that.

  • Every day my mother had tea. My dad has his ritual cigar. They had their evening cocktail. Those rituals were done nicely, with flair and feeling.

  • I'm too busy looking for the next role to do. I think about how to continue, to survive in the same vein. I like my career and my life as it is.

  • When all else fails, fresh tactics!

  • You know, I've never killed a man before. I mean I droped bombs on the enemy from the above, but never face to face. [thinking pause] I don't see what the big deal is - I really don't.

  • As you get older you have to force yourself to have new dreams.

  • Let's share our abundance and make our country stronger. We can encourage programs that collect and distribute excess prepared food to local organizations that are helping the hungry in our own communities. We can also support programs that supply commodities to food banks. It's all part of committing our country's wealth and resources to end childhood hunger.

  • There's no rule that everyone has to change.

  • Having kids is something you can't always do. Kids are like lightning. You grab that lightning when you can get it.

  • You have a freedom in playing the villain. You can be a lot more out there, really. And there is a joy in that. There is a joy in kind of making a zone of psychoses.

  • In my own life if I knew I was going to pass away I'd love to sit down and resolve every issue so I could go peacefully.

  • You have to remember everything you've created. But then comes a moment when it's all automatic pilot, where it all comes together and you don't have to think about it any more.

  • It's difficult for me to diet, so I don't. So, I make up for it in exercise. What I am willing to eat, I have to be willing to work off. It's that simple.

  • Tom Cruise has-we all have-the right to practice how we feel...don't judge someone until they have tossed your salad.

  • The Beatles meant everything to me growing up, and John was part of that. I loved Lennon's persona. He knew who he was, and he knew what he represented to a worldwide public. ... I think he incited and inspired a whole group of youth to speak out and say what they felt.

  • I like to fly at least once a day.

  • I learned early on that there are certain things you can control in the press, and things you cannot.

  • Sometimes when something really works well, it becomes a target, forty years for me, I've been a part, and I've loved every minute of it. My family has done so well with it. It's been a beautiful thing for me. I've saved lives with it and saved my own life several times. Through my loss of my son, it helped me every step of the way for two years solid, and here I am.

  • To Americans religious freedom is sacred.

  • I decided when I was a kid that I would only go out of the house if I felt good enough to be bothered. Could I be interrupted at dinner? Am I in the mood? If I am, I go out. If I'm not, I don't! So, it's the art of deciding what the truth of your job is, and what you can and cannot handle. You can design your stresses.

  • If I'm androgynous, I'd say I lean toward macho-androgynous.

  • My nature is happy. And all I can control is my response to input. If you come around me and tell me bad news all the time, I can say, "You know what? I don't want to hear it." If its just gossip, you know, I can choose not to hear it. And that, in effect, can control my mood.

  • I called my son Jett and I wanted to call my daughter Qantas but my wife wouldn't let me.

  • I feel very fortunate for audiences to have been so gracious as to allow me to do pretty much any role that I felt I could do. They let me play a president. They let me play a lawyer. They let me play a hit man. They let me play a father. They let me play Howard Saint.

  • I love being regarded as a sex symbol, but I can't take it too seriously.

  • I have a dance background. I have an athletic background.

  • I actually do like playing off-beat people. I think it's more fun.

  • I do feel fortunate in that I am probably allowed more often to be a character actor then most actors are allowed to be, and I don't take that lightly or superficially at all. I mean, I really do appreciate it.

  • Autism and seizures are the least known areas of illnesses.

  • I think what you have to do is have a box office success in every genre and then you're set for life. And fortunately, I happened to do that, so I get a myriad of offers of various sorts.

  • I don't think I'm very cool as a person. I'm just better than anyone else at acting cool.

  • The women I liked when I was growing up, as a little boy, were Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, because they had these curvaceous figures, and they were erotic to me.

  • I told my manager, 'If we can't do the things now that we want to do, what good is the power?... Let's test it and try to get the things done that we believe in.'

  • Well, I enjoy my life. You know, I think life is an art, and that one has to live it as an art. That's your choice.

  • Everything is on its way to somewhere.

  • I will direct one day, but I have a feeling that it will be very limited.

  • You gotta learn to laugh, it's the way to true love.

  • I grew up, in my childhood, with some of the greatest women performers, on stage and on screen, and even my family - my mother and my sisters. So I was very busy watching women, as a child! I have a lot of memories of great women performers

  • Let's share our abundance and make our country stronger.

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