Joseph Gordon-Levitt quotes:

The spiral in a snail's shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It's the same ratio that you'll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world.

Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy.

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.

The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.

Every day I've got to be thankful that I am alive, and you never know - the cliche is, I guess, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so you'd better be at peace with whatever you got going at the moment.

A lot of the motivation for doing the 'Make 'Em Laugh' on SNL was because I had just finished shooting 'Inception,' where there were zero-gravity scenes and I got into really good shape and was training and did all these stunts. Coming off of that, that instilled me with the confidence to do 'Make 'Em Laugh.'

If the goal is to get the best artists, actors, and filmmakers in the world to create the best movies, Hollywood does a decent job. And I think no one would disagree with me that it also makes a ton of bad movies and employs a bunch of hacks.

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.

I like making little videos and little records. I've always loved video cameras and four-track cassette recorders, still cameras, anything.

Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.

Celebrity doesn't have anything to do with art or craft. It's about being rich and thinking that you're better than everybody else.

There's an absolute prejudice that good movies are dramas and comedies are more dismissable. But I couldn't disagree more.

I mean, movies in general tend to sort of portray time, space and identity as these very solid things. Time moves forward. Space is what it is. You are you, and you're always you.

That is very different from how it used to be in the 20th century. Media was very one way. There's a small little industry. It broadcasted its message and everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that's healthy and actually restoring a more natural way.

Movies are different from real life.

I was just watching baby videos of me and I was obviously an exhibitionist.

I think, honestly, that the word 'indie' is a false gimmick. 'Independent' used to mean a movie that was financed outside corporate Hollywood, but a lot of what gets called independent these days is totally produced within that system. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.

Normally, it's difficult for me to watch a movie that I'm in.

Even today, in our progressive times, in most movies that come out, the men have to have biceps and the women have to be thin or something.

While I'm not a celebrity, it's such a weird concept that society has cooked up for us. Astronauts and teachers are much more amazing than actors.

When I started editing on my home computer, I said to myself, 'Well, I could be at home studying for a class or I could be at home editing a video.'

Making checklists of things you're looking for in a person is the numero uno thing you can do to guarantee you'll be alone forever.

I was studying for the SAT's and learning lines.

On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be.

A lot of people, most people who are working, they do it for money. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It so happens that I made a lot of money already, so I don't have to worry that much about it. I wouldn't fault anybody for doing it for the money, but it doesn't interest me right now.

When I was a teenager, if anyone recognized me for anything I did, it would ruin my day. I couldn't handle it. It was some sort of neurotic phobia. I guess I was paranoid that people would treat me differently, or in an unfair way, because of my job.

I have a really terrible sense of direction.

As soon as you are trying to be funny or dramatic, that's when things start feeling fake and boring.

Quality isn't about where the money came from or which company gets to put their name on the thing. What matters is who made the movie and why they made it.

I don't blame the people for the fact that so many movies are bad. I think there's a corrupt, perverted, lazy and sloppy attitude that's pervasive in the movie business. The whole entertainment business is kind of crumbling around us.

I think our culture is sick and tired of fluffy nonsense and people want something more sincere and heartfelt.

I'm definitely not a science nerd, I'll say that. That was not my forte at school.

I don't buy into the glory days thing. I think every time has its great things to it. The '60s were such a glorious time but it's easy to forget that there was all sorts of bullshit too.

The thing about Occupy is that the sentiment the movement embodies is timeless: Don't be greedy, share.

You're gone. No mailing address. But I send you letters anyway.

My dad never blew anything up, but he probably had friends who did. He and my mom have always preached that the pen is mightier than a Molotov cocktail.

Media used to be one way. Everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that's healthy.

I do feel that even though I didn't grow up being a big sci-fi fan or comic books or superhero fan, I felt myself definitely gravitate towards these movies that have a high concept and yet they're giving you a moral dilemma within that.

This is the saddest, most depressing music I've ever heard. It makes me so happy.

If I were to point to the person who's having the greatest impact... I'd point to Elon Musk.

The element of surprise wasn't allowed near the Periodic Table.

I know other worlds exist. I can see them in my peripheral vision.

The term 'popular culture' always used to mean what the people do - pop songs, folk songs, music in general used to live because people would sing these songs and tell these stories together. Then all of these new technologies came out and it became the work of professionals.

I'd been an actor my whole life, since I was a kid. And then, I quit for awhile and went to university. When I wanted to start acting again, I couldn't get a job, and that was really depressing. So, I realized, at that time, that I have to take responsibility for my own creativity.

Hollywood has the idea that movies have to be dumb. But especially movies for or about teenagers have to be really dumb!

Ummm... well, the only thing I want to do is stuff with people who care about what they're doing, which sounds obvious, but it's really not.

It's HE-RO," the boy argued."No," the girl insisted,"it's HER-O.

I was a sort of serious little dude - snobby.

He [Mark Webb] is very savvy, technically, he's shot so many videos, he knows how to get what he wants. The surprise, of course, is that he's also an extremely humanistic story-teller. He's obsessed with story and character, and not just making it look right, which is a double-thred that's rare in directors.

There's no royalty in America, so people deify actors.

I think that anybody who says 'This is the one way to go about being an actor' has probably not done a lot of professional work before.

I didn't want to just work within Hollywood when I started a production company. I wanted to be able to collaborate with great artists from all over the world.

I just want to open up the avenues for people to express themselves. That's what the media ought to be. It shouldn't just be a conveyer belt of shiny products to buy. It should be a way that we're all communicating and understanding each other.

If you don't stick to your plan enough, and you're too seduced by whimsical notions and new ideas, you can kind of lose your train of thought and end up with something that doesn't have a solid through-line.

What makes a good work of art is something that honors certain traditions and breaks with others.

I lost you when you left me to find yourself.

There's something really appealing about the simplicity of black-and-white images.

Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.

I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.

I think some of the best actors ever were little kids.

I just like to do work that inspires me, and I don't pay any attention to whether it's a high- or low-budget movie.

To be honest, I sort of feel like 'movie actor' isn't of this time. I love it. But it's a 20th-century art form.

The Internet is allowing us to get back to what's really more natural, which is that storytelling is a shared thing. It's our natural way to be communal.

I think the dual existence thing is a regular pastime for all human beings, and for that matter anything in this universe.

I was such a big Dustin Hoffman fan when I was young.

When I was 20, I went to Paris and tried to meet French women. It didn't work.

I stopped getting nervous a long time ago, so any time I do get nervous, which is rare - about work, anyway - I always take that as a really good sign.

To me, a sex scene in a movie generally means a gratuitous scene that doesn't serve the story but gives a kind of excuse - we've got these two actors, we want to see them naked, so let's bring in the music and the soft light.

Comedy takes a very specific technique, specific skills.

My personal belief is that everything is always happening all at once.

It's less about what you do and more about who you are doing it with.

I never intended to only do dark, serious things.

In the old days, people would gather around the fire, or they would gather at a tavern, and they'd tell a story. And then, maybe a week later, someone would tell the same story, but with a different twist on it. That's how folk takes evolved.

My favorite kinds of movies are the ones that start a conversation.

The doctor's wife ate two apples a day, just to be safe. But her husband kept coming home.

Your heart has a little empty corner. You won't even know I'm there -- I'll be very quiet.

This movie [Don Jon] played at Sundance and South by Southwest and Berlin. And it just played - well...by the time it played at Toronto recently, it was already done. But getting to watch it with a thousand people is hugely informative.

If you know which way the current is going, you can use it to your advantage.

The sun is such a lonely star. Whenever he comes out to see his friends, they all disappear.

We couldn't afford test screenings. This is a relatively low-budget movie [Don Jon]. But what we did have was the festival circuit.

If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.

Once you spend time with [the afflicted], you start recognizing them as individuals, as opposed to lumping them in with everybody else who might have those symptoms.

I know how to make an audience laugh, 'cause I grew up on Third Rock from the Sun, week after week in front of audiences, making them laugh.

I just need some time away to remember why I stay.

We're all beautiful. We all deserve attention.

That's sort of what I wanted to make fun of a little bit with Don Jon. And I think oftentimes, if you're going to talk about a sort of substantial topic like this, the best way to do it is with a sense of humor.

When I was Younger, I wanted to be something.Now, I just want to be younger.

Success is not important to me, nor are power or money. If the script feels good, then I'm in. It's that simple.

I suppose the longer anyone spends on earth, the closer we all get to becoming superfluous characters.

Lets face it, most pretty girls arent funny

So to compare your real life, or your partner or lover or whoever to a character in a movie, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. They don't map.

That's what life is: repetitive routines. It's a matter of finding the balance between deviating from those patterns and knowing when to repeat them.

Well, look who I ran into," crowed Coincidence. "Please," flirted Fate, "this was meant to be.

I'm tired of being tired of being tired of being.

For context, the budget of Don Jon is about half the budget of (500) Days of Summer. And (500) Days of Summer is about a third of the budget of the lowest-budget movies produced at a major studio.

Darkness is a lot of what art is and certainly in our community a lot of it is people sort of wrestling with their demons.

I've always found it sort of hilarious, and occasionally horrifying, how these images [in mass media] impact us, and especially when it comes to love and sex and relationships, I think we sometimes develop unrealistic expectations.

The universe is not made up of atoms; it's made up of tiny stories.

I tend to think having an impact on the world is a lot more complicated than government.

I think the reason I was able to get the jobs I did is because I worked for some very strong, self-possessed filmmakers who wouldn't listen to the executive-suited wisdom, and they believed in me from director to actor. Not from salesman to commodity.

I've always paid a lot of attention to the way that different kinds of media affect how we see the world, probably because I've been an actor since I was a little kid.

When you believe that you can do something, that's when you can do it.

Real life is not as simple as it is on a screen. I think real life is actually a lot more beautiful.

eating is the sleeping of being awake.

I've been hearing it a lot, especially in the last few years; people will say things to me like "Well, if only I was like you in that movie," or "If only I could be with someone like you in that movie." And, you know, it's very flattering to hear that.

Here's the new art of the twenty-first century: the art of curating, the art of plucking all the good stuff from a superabundance of crap.

It's worth paying attention to the roles that are sort of dictated to us and that we don't have to fit into those roles. We can be anybody we wanna be.

I think there is something beautiful in reveling in sadness. The proof is how beautiful sad songs can be. So I don't think being sad is to be avoided. It's apathy and boredom you want to avoid. But feeling anything is good, I think. Maybe that's sadistic of me.

Real life is not like a movie. Even the best movies, the most rich, fleshed-out movies are not as rich and nuanced as detailed as real life or an actual human being.

I find the voice is what I look for first and foremost with just about every character I play.

I think acting is totally conducive to being a little kid, because kids are less inhibited and use their imagination.

I knew that if I wanted to really maintain control, I would have to keep the budget down. And I did. And I feel very fortunate that - y'know, this movie [Don Jon] - frame for frame, line for line - is exactly what I wanted it to be. Nobody made me change anything.

There's a long, long history of women suffering abuse, injustice, and not having the same opportunities as men, and I think that's been very detrimental to the human race as a whole.

The truth of actually working on a movie set is that you're in the midst of a logistical nightmare. There are so many things going on. There are many factors that keep your ideal scenario from ever happening. And you're rarely going to get that.

This overwhelming desire to be close to you directly conflicts with my intense fear of people.

I didn't really like doing commercials. You had to behave like you were on angel dust or something.

When I'm on set, I do whatever I can to find my focus. One thing that stays pretty consistent for all my jobs is, I listen to a lot of music while I'm working. Because when there's all this stuff going on, for me to be able to put on headphones and listen to music helps me keep my focus,. A big part of creating a character for me is finding the general palette for what kind of music I'm going to be listening to.

Your kisses are snowflakes: each one is unique. They land on me, before they melt away and leave me cold.

But I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is.