Philip Seymour Hoffman quotes:

Being unemployed is not good for an actor. No, it isn't, no matter how unsuccessful you are. Because you always remember getting fired from all the restaurants. You remember that stuff very, very strongly.

There are a lot of things going on with my life right now that don't just have to do with career. So I have a hard time making decisions about work. That's really a luxury problem.

There's nothing risky in talking about your personal life. People do it all the time.

The film is made in the editing room. The shooting of the film is about shopping, almost. It's like going to get all the ingredients together, and you've got to make sure before you leave the store that you got all the ingredients. And then you take those ingredients and you can make a good cake - or not.

You know the circus performer who spins the plates in the air you know, and he'll spin six or seven plates in the air? Acting sometimes is kind of that guy spinning all those plates in the air but in your head and in your body.

I have a fine level of recognition in the business and among the acting community now, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. If I didn't think that, there would be something wrong with me. I'm grateful and thankful for what I've got.

People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside.

Well, I think everyone struggles with self-love.

My girlfriend's a costume designer in the theater.

Creating something is all about problem-solving.

When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.

The ambition, the drive, the wanting to be the center of attention, the wanting to succeed... They're all inside me somewhere.

Directing is a really kind of amazing thing, because you're helping others and, in the middle of that, you have to worry about yourself.

One person's religion is another person's cult.

The foibles of my body are pretty much out there in the work I do.

In life, do you ever really know if you're missing an opportunity? No, you really don't.

I do understand what it is to not want to commit to someone, knowing that might bring pain or commit to a life that has to do with being responsible to people other than myself. These things, I think, are normal things.

To be fair to my dad, he is one of the brightest men I've ever met.

People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to.

My love for the theater has always been a priority. That hasn't changed. I got into acting that way. The film work that came up was really a surprise.

I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me.

You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting.

I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that.

It's important to say that actors can't act alone, it's impossible. What we have to do is support each other.

I work constantly but I work at a lot of different things. You know, I run a theater company in New York, I direct plays, act in plays, in movies, so I try to keep it eclectic.

Life's pretty funny when you're objectively on the outside looking at it.

I didn't really buy LPs or go to concerts.

If you're a human being walking the earth, you're weird, you're strange, you're psychologically challenged.

The drama nerd comes out in me when I'm in a theater.

If I was a little bit younger I would worry more. I'd want to do one thing at a time but now I try to do a bunch of different things at a time if I can.

Ultimately what I'll do next is up in the air for me.

You can look at anything as a cult. Churches are cults in their own way.

I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'd be dead.'

I think directors should be confident in their leadership capabilities. I think directors should be confident in what they want to do.

I had insecurities and fears like everybody does, and I got over it. But I was interested in the parts of me that struggled with those things.

Being with a kid always takes you to being a kid somehow, and they really are showing me a childhood I might not have had in some way.

I think Magnolia is one of the best films I've ever seen and I can say that straight and out and anybody that disagrees with me I'll fight you to the death. I just think it is one of the greatest films I've ever been in and ever seen.

Ultimately, I think writing is a mixture of craft, inspiration, and being incredibly, courageously explorative with yourself - and being brutally honest, too.

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

A lot of people describe me as chubby, which seems so easy, so first-choice. Or stocky. Fair-skinned. Tow-headed. There are so many other choices. How about dense? I mean, I'm a thick kind of guy. But I'm never described in attractive ways. I'm waiting for somebody to say I'm at least cute. But nobody has.

With "Good Night, and Good Luck," I think it's kind of obvious what [Truman Capote]'s getting at there, and the importance of how it's playing out today, that is journalism doing, are the journalists doing their job, are they being the other checks and balances in our country that the way that obviously Edward R. Murrow was back then.

Good work is the only thing that would make me feel jealous or envious.

I was probably finding my feet more than anybody. I really have to say I was more obsessed with myself faltering than anybody else.

Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.

Success isn't what makes you happy. It really isn't. Success is doing what makes you happy and doing good work and hopefully having a fruitful life. If I've felt like I've done good work, that makes me happy. The success part of it is all gravy.

Sometimes I have a great day of filming and sometimes the theater strikes me better. It just depends.

I have an awful memory, and I have a great memory. Meaning that, if I'm trying to remember something, I can't remember it. But my recall is fantastic.

My image of Jesus is someone who is exciting...Were he alive today, he would be causing havoc!

I know some really great actors who are pretty judgmental people, pretty critical people. But they're great actors. When they're acting, that's the craft.

There's something in the very small minutia of life that tells us something about the big, big picture that we see every day all over the place, and so I think the more specific and creative and revelatory you are in the micro, the more powerful the macro will be.

I think good art, if I could be pretentious enough to say, I think good art deals with the micro to explain the macro.

I'm probably more personal when I'm acting than at any other time. More open, more direct. Because it allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, you know? Because it's make- believe.

I know I wasn't as handsome as some other guys, but I was OK with that.

Sometimes it's hard to say no. Ultimately, if you stick to your guns, you have the career that you want. Don't get me wrong. I love a good payday and I'll do films for fun. But ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it.

No one wants to be pretentious about what they do or take it seriously, because that is just weird.

I always thought I'd be a New York theater actor, riding my bicycle to rehearsal. That was all I ever wanted.

In a film there a lot of people scheduling, you know.

There are characters in movies who I call 'film characters.' They don't exist in real life. They exist to play out a scenario. They can be in fantastic films, but they are not real characters; what happens to them is not lifelike.

Sometimes I take a temperature of things just because everyone else does. Especially when I'm doing a play. I want to know what people are thinking, positive or negative.

When you think about [Truman] Capote in the - was what he did exploitative of a person's life or exploitative of these murders? You look at our culture now, you look at celebrity and how it plays out in our culture now, and Capote was one of the great PR men of his time.

Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that.

I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.

Actors are investigators.

Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.

To act well isn't an easy thing.

I think therapy is a helpful thing. I think everyone knows it. You do it for your life, you do it for yourself, because you want to explore some things, and get at the bottom of some things. It's about your life, the quality of your life.

My soul is in good shape.

I've seen a lot of friends who have a lot of great projects, whether it's a script or a play or whatever, and it is a great project and they have great people involved, and they can't make it.

If I don't feel like I'm doing the job well, and I don't know how to get there, or I'm too scared, or whatever, I'm not a happy guy and I'm not pleasant. I'm not pleasant to be around.

I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.

My ideal weight is 205, actually.

[Truman Capote] was not only just selling his writing, but he was selling himself as a person.

a self-awareness moment. All of a sudden everything he has done comes flashing into his mind, a self-criticism that is unbearable.

Acting is so difficult for me that, unless the work is of a certain stature in my mind, unless I reach the expectations I have of myself, I'm unhappy. Then it's a miserable existence. I'm putting a piece of myself out there. If it doesn't do anything, I feel so ashamed. I'm afraid I'll be the kind of actor who thought he would make a difference and didn't. Right now, though, I feel like I made a little bit of difference.

Acting's difficult for me because I think you have to be passionately involved in what you're doing.

Actors are responsible to the people we play.

Actors are responsible to the people we play. I don't label or judge. I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can.

All over the world, young men and young women will always dream dreams.

Bob Glaudini, the writer, he's a wonderfully talented man and all his plays and his screenplays, they all have sense of something bigger, even though you're looking at something very simple.

Creating anything is hard.

Don't let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they're bored and step on you when they're done. Be like drugs, let them die for you.

Film's hard when you don't have any relationship with the director at all and you just show up. Then you really are just a gun for hire.

For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, that's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great - well, that's absolutely torturous.

Great talent admits shortcomings.

I do feel like all the people I meet, all the people I'm in discussions with, if I'm working with somebody, I sense the same energy that everybody is suffering from the same predicament.

I don't know, I was young, I drank too much, you know, so I stopped. You know what I mean, it's not really complicated. I had no interest in drinking in moderation. And I still don't. Just because all that time's passed doesn't mean maybe it was just a phase. That's you know, that's who I am.

I don't want to repeat myself.

I feel like I made a little bit of difference.

I feel like the need to want to create and make something is stronger than the difficulties are going through.

I got into plays in high school then I ended up going to college for it.

I got sober when I was 22 years old.

I had a father who was a traveling salesman.

I have three children and I think I'm happy when I'm with them and they're okay. When I see them enjoying each other in front of me, and then they let me enjoy them in turn. That brings a feeling which I would say is happiness.

I know that obviously, that if you want to get the story, if you want to get close to somebody, if you want to find out what is really the truth or what's really interesting, you have to create a trust between these two things, between the journalist and the subject.

I like so many different kinds of music just because all I did was listen to the radio as a kid.

I think I would have drank myself to death, literally, if I didn't just stop, once and for all when I did. I am not ever going to preach to anyone about drugs or drinking. But, for me, when they were around, I had no self control.

I think I'm less anonymous than I was.

I think you gotta have an honesty and a humility about human nature and that it's not about you at the end of the day.

I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you've got.

I think you ultimately have to love who you're playing. You have to have that kind of feeling. You have to have passion for the person.

I try not to plan that too much.

I try to live my life in such a way that I don't have any regrets. That's probably why I work so much. I don't want to feel I missed something important.

I would definitely say pleasure is not happiness. Because I think I kill pleasure. Like I take too much of it in, and therefore make it un-pleasurable, like too much coffee, and you're miserable.

I would never not work on the part without it playing. That's what being an actor is. You use everything that's influenced you to help you get out of yourself or be more creative.

If all people are encouraged to actually see who they're coexisting with, or even if they're not coexisting with other people.It's like to look at the world you're in.

If I'm directing actors, I learn about acting that way. If I'm acting, I learn about directing that way. Producing is just something that's come about because there's projects I find interesting that I would like to help get done.

If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft.

In film, you have to let go sometimes.

In order for something to be born, something has to die.That's not always, but there is something about that that I find to be true. That is, it's a natural thing.

I've grown to really love musicals, you know?

I've never been on a cruise.

I've worked with a lot of characters that are unhinged. I've played characters that are unhinged. That's, like, my job.

Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live,

Life is short. Time is short. As we get older, time does quicken. It's long, and it's long pertaining to that thought, that the past is not done with you because you can't rid of it.

My favorite thing about acting is being alone and going through the scripts and working on it and getting ideas and asking myself questions, looking outside myself for them and researching and getting to the bottom of something and being creative with it as an actor and how to express it in a creative fashion. That's my favorite part. And, the actual acting of it.

My mum is incredibly intelligent.

My mum's name is Marilyn O'Connor. She's here tonight and I would like if you see her for you to congratulate her because she brought up four kids alone and she deserves congratulations for that.

People used to be funny about approaching me, but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be.

Plays never feel like the right thing to do at the time.

Sometimes I'm uncomfortable with the level of fame I've got! It all depends on the day and what's going on. I don't desire any more fame. I don't need it.