Ryan Phillippe quotes:

My first film goes into production in October. It's called White Boy Shuffle and it's based on a novel about a young black kid and it's sort of reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye.

Tarantino's stuff in its inception was all about finding a way for him to break into Hollywood.

Home life's great, man. The kids are great, happy and healthy. I've reached this sort of wonderful precipice.

To me, White Boy Shuffle is sort of like Catcher in the Rye, the story is so universal.

I still have sadness and complicated feelings about my divorce. But how beneficial is it to keep hanging onto those feelings? If someone lives through an accident, his aim is to become better and healthy. My aim is always to progress - to make better decisions and be a better father, a better boyfriend, a better husband if it happens again.

There's always difficulties and challenges in every life, I don't care how much money you make, where you live... and that's something this film speaks to.

Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around.

What's more ludicrous is the whole idea of me being jealous and competitive.

You know, social issue movies don't make a lot of money.

It's nice that people want to compliment you in some superficial way, but I've never considered that that's how I might be categorized. I guess it's better than being called ugly.

I know that when I grew up I was pretty sheltered, and didn't come to understand much about the world until I was in my really late teens and early twenties, and that process continues.

Tarantino's movies, I really enjoy, certainly, and when I was 19 and 20, I was really into them.

I really respond to diversity, a broader landscape, with actors of different ages and races and backgrounds.

I've been in this business for a long time at my age, I've just turned 30, and I feel like my wife's career is going incredibly well, my kids are happy and healthy in schools, we've both been able to buy a house for our parents, respectively, in the places they live.

To me, White Boy Shuffle is sort of like Catcher in the Rye, the story is so universal."

I have three sisters and I've always wanted a brother, so I was really interested in that notion.

My sisters are my favorite people on earth.

A lot of producers cookie cut movies one after another, but I'll be a little more careful, and have the opportunity to be, because I have the acting career to subsidize the producing.

Working in South Africa and the people in Johannesburg get under your skin. It stays with you. It's a place I want to take my children back to. It's a place that filled me with great joy and inspiration but also sadness. I think it's one of the most complex places on the planet.

The world's gotten smaller by virtue of the Internet and new media.

At 27, it's great to get to a place where I'm not an actor for hire anymore.

Where you raise your children isn't as important as how you raise your children.

People are sheepish when they approach me.

The point is to expand the scope of what a movie can possibly mean or be, to get people involved because they're artistic or understand the point of the material, not just because they fit a certain bill aesthetically.

I want to make movies that people talk about when they leave the theater, that aren't clear-cut, but effective and fulfilling in some sense.

I learn so much more in an ensemble movie.

I grew up with no money. My kids will grow up with a lot of money and so it's really important to me, and it will always be a part of my parenting, to keep them conscientious and connected socially to other people.

LA can be a very open and accepting creative environment. But it is important, because there is this odd separation here, it is important to make your kids mindful of other people and other people's plight.

Well actually, some weeks they'll write that I'm jealous of living in her shadow. Then other weeks, they'll write that all I want to do is loaf around on her money! It's ridiculous!

A film goes through so many hands, that by the time it's done, it might not resemble what you thought you were making.

Being a father is the greatest achievement and the most important thing about me. I have two great kids, no question.

But I'm not particularly comfortable around guns.

But in a broader sense, when I have more control, I want to expose people to new ideas.

Granted, there are times when, for business reasons, you do something that's more mainstream. But even then, I try to find something that has a dark or subversive aspect.

I am miserable when I'm in a movie I'm not proud of and a movie that I don't want to do.

I only want to make movies I want to see. That may mean my career is somewhat limited, but that is my version of integrity. No matter how it performs or how it's received, I can be okay with it.

I will no longer be an actor to hire, I have a passion for producing and making films.

I won't make a movie for money ever again.

I'm really interested in having a studio one day and being a filmmaker.

In my career, I've often played the protagonist or the hero of the movie, and there are so many rules inherent to that role. The audience needs to stay with you, identify with you and like you. When you play the bad guy, those rules go out the window. There's so much freedom there.

It just makes so many other things insignificant. It is the most incredible thing that has happened to me, and I feel so lucky to have found the person I want to be with, and to be prepared and enthusiastic.

I've made 30-plus films over 20 years. And in my opinion, five of them are good,

I've written something and I would like to have my first film directed by the time I'm 30.

Music is my greatest love. If I could play an instrument I would be a musician.

On his daughter, Ava: She is a relief from all the stress in my life; everyday she does something new and it is so amazing.

Over the past 10 years of being famous, my relationship with the camera has not been a pleasant one.

People keep trying to make me a movie star but they just don't understand. I'm not a movie star, I'm an actor.

The idea of being in a hugely successful movie that I don't like would be just as bad as being in a film that I love that no one sees. I wouldn't want the kind of success that felt cheap or that I didn't own.

The idea of doing something that you've seen a thousand times before doesn't appeal to me.

The ultimate 20-year plan is to be living in the Caribbean, writing, living off the land, eating from the ocean and probably smoking herb.

There are a lot of good stories out there, but I haven't found too many great scripts.

There was a time - before I made movies - when I was more forgiving, but now that I've learned as much as I have, I want to do movies that I want to see, that have their own unique flavor.

To be more involved and more aware is appealing to me.