Tom Hanks quotes:

Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

There's this misconception that the Navy is this cruise ship, and you get to go out and sail around, and every now and then, you have to swab the deck. But, no, it is a very impressive group of young people that live at sea, in this place that's very uncomfortable. They exude a pride that is well-deserved.

When I was 21 years old, I had a job playing Santa Claus in a shopping centre in Sacramento. I was rail thin, so it's not like I was a traditional Santa Claus even then. I had a square stomach; that was the shape of the sofa cushion that I had stuffed into my pants.

You cannot look up at the night sky on the Planet Earth and not wonder what it's like to be up there amongst the stars. And I always look up at the moon and see it as the single most romantic place within the cosmos.

When I work, a lot of times I have to lose weight, and I do that, but in my regular life I was not eating right, and I was not getting enough exercise. But by the nature of my diet and that lifestyle - boom! The end result was high blood sugars that reach the levels where it becomes Type 2 diabetes. I share that with a gajillion other people.

Acting still rings my bell as much as it did in high school. Plus, I can now indulge my interests as a producer as well. My work is more fun than fun but, best of all, it's still very scary. You are always walking some kind of high wire.

Some people go to bed at night thinking, 'That was a good day.' I am one of those who worries and asks, 'How did I screw up today?'

I did a 'Love Boat!' And based on my trip on the 'Love Boat,' I said, 'I'd just as soon not do 'Fantasy Island.'

The most accurate representation of how I feel is that I'm incredibly lucky to be working in this structure where people get paid millions to read the news on TV. And, yes, it is insane. And there is nothing I can say beyond acknowledging my immense good fortune, and being aware that I'm blessed, and aware that it isn't going to last forever.

I've talked to a number of actors who have gained weight for roles, and just the sheer physical toll it puts on one's knees and shoulders - no one wants to do it again. I'm 57 and I don't think I'm going to take on any job or go on vacation again and see to it that I can gain 30 pounds.

Larry Crowne' is about as bummed out a human being as one can be when he loses his job. What he is able to enjoy is something that may not be available to everybody. But it's about the value of being willing to get and willing to give good advice.

It just so happens that my body type and my lifestyle gives me a preclusion for high blood sugars.

I have high blood sugars, and Type 2 diabetes is not going to kill me. But I just have to eat right, and exercise, and lose weight, and watch what I eat, and I will be fine for the rest of my life.

Tweeting is like sending out cool telegrams to your friends once a week.

I have gone through so many examinations of what a hero is, between the World War II stuff and the astronaut stuff.

I think 80 percent of the population are really great, caring people who will help you and tell you the truth. That's just the way it is. And I think 20 percent of the population are crooks and liars. It's just a fact.

By and large, the making of motion pictures is all about, 'Let's ratchet it up.' And I always think, 'We don't need to ratchet this up.' If you do, don't call it 'Captain Phillips' or 'The Maersk Alabama.' Call it something else, and then you have carte blanche to do anything, down to sea serpents and aliens.

It's always a combination of physics and poetry that I find inspiring. It's hard to wrap your head around things like the Hubble scope.

There isn't any great mystery about me. What I do is glamorous and has an awful lot of white-hot attention placed on it. But the actual work requires the same discipline and passion as any job you love doing, be it as a very good pipe fitter or a highly creative artist.

There is something basic about protecting land by taking it off the market. People should be able to enjoy where they live while at the same time protect the plants and animals around them.

As long as you as an individual... can convince yourself that in order to move forward as best you can you have to be optimistic, you can be described as 'one of the faithful,' one of those people who can say, 'Well, look, something's going to happen! Let's just keep trying. Let's not give up.

No journalist has ever been in my house and no photographs have ever been taken of where I live. I don't parade my family out for display, which is the way it will stay.

Now, learning how to make a movie is something you can figure out in about an afternoon. The physics of it, the marks, the lights, etc. What's hard to do is to suspend your own feelings of self consciousness. The natural actors can do that; they can become part of a characterization and learn how to maintain it.

What we're doing with Band of Brothers is trying to put it into human terms, so it is not just a flickering, black and white myth on a screen, it is a resonant story. I want the audience to recognize themselves in these men. They're not just mythic heroes.

My TV show had been cancelled; nothing else had gone anywhere; some alliances I had made petered out and nothing came of them and I was looking at a long, long year ahead of me in which there was no work on the horizon, the phone wasn't ringing. I had two kids, one of them a brand-new baby, and I didn't know if I would be able to keep my house.

The year I was born, 1956, was the peak year for babies being born, and there are more people essentially our age than anybody else. We could crush these new generations if we decided too.

Forrest Gump' was great, it was fabulous. It lasted much longer than anybody thought, and brought me a degree of attention that no human being on the face of the planet deserves.

I love what I do for a living, it's the greatest job in the world, but you have to survive an awful lot of attention that you don't truly deserve and you have to live up to your professional responsibilities and I'm always trying to balance that with what is really important.

I think I'm lucky that I had kids as spread out as much as I did, 'cause my son, my oldest, was born when I was 21. And my youngest is 15 now. He was born when I was 40, you know?

And then it was like, wait, you can go to college and study theater? And act in plays? This is almost a racket, you know. And then when the opportunity came along to do it professionally, I thought I'd won the lottery.

Human beings do things for a reason, even if sometimes it's the wrong reason.

At the end of the day it's got to be a good movie, it's got to be a funny movie, and it's got to make people think, 'Hey, I couldn't have spent my time any better.'

My doctor said, 'If you can weigh what you weighed in high school, you'll essentially be healthy and not have Type 2 diabetes.' Well, I'm gonna have Type 2 diabetes, because there is no way I can weigh as much as I did in high school.

My wife keeps on telling me my worst fault is that I keep things to myself and appear relaxed. But I am really in a room in my own head and not hearing a thing anyone is saying.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.

And I'm not apolitical - I'm very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it's nobody's business unless you're over at my house having dinner.

Even if a story has nothing to do with my life, if I can recognise something of myself in the character and think, 'Oh yeah, that's what I'd do...' Yeah, that's what I look for.

There's a small percentage of people who can act. There's a small percentage who get to do this for a living. There's a swath of the population that are able to keep a story in their head and fight all the battles against self-consciousness and the surreal unnaturalness of acting in a movie. The technical aspects you can learn fairly quickly.

I would not want to live in a country that would have me as a leader in any sort of political bent.

Movie-making is telling a story with the best technology at your disposal.

The truth is that everyone pays attention to who's number one at the box office. And none of it matters, because the only thing that really exists is the connection the audience has with a movie.

My kid could get a bad X-ray and I could get a call from the doctor saying I have something growing in my bum and that would change my perspective on everything instantaneously, on what is and what is not important.

Larger-than-life characters make up about .01 percent of the world's population.

If there are nine guys auditioning and they're all gorgeous, I have an advantage, because gorgeous guys are a dime a dozen. But if they need someone else - like a goofy guy with bad hair who is just okay - then that's me. And finally, the other 2 percent who audition are geniuses that I could never touch.

I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.

Prior to Saving Private Ryan I never worked with men. I was always working with some babe, and it was always about falling in love, and it just got turned around. I'm not looking for any particular kind of story. I wait until it comes across my desk.

But the battles against loneliness that I fought when I was 16 are very different from those I fought when I was 27, and those are very different from the ones I fight at 44.

The same way that I know that I'll never do a movie as good or as celebrated as 'Forrest Gump,' I know that I'll never do a movie as bad as 'Bonfire of the Vanities.'

Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get." Number Six in the Top Ten Most Famous Movie Quotes. -The Guinness Book of Film

There was nothing to react to except wind and trees [in Cast Away]. It was like making a silent movie.

Dear God, thank you for my life. I forgot how big and wonderful it is.

My favorite traditional Christmas movie that I like to watch is All Quiet on the Western Front. It's just not December without that movie in my house.

But actors with political views are a dime a dozen.

I'm lucky enough to be able to make only movies I'm interested in seeing. That has to be an instinctive thrust. The audience knows when you're faking it. They can hang any kind of moniker they want on me.

For some people, I will be Forrest Gump for the rest of my life. But that's OK; that's a good thing.

Growing up in northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland, we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the Sierras the next day.

It's just as hard... staying happily married as it is doing movies.

Houston, we have a problem.

I am who I am, and I think I have a good nature, by and large. But if someone takes advantage of that good nature, well then, you know, I'm not that nice a guy.

I love my family and I love my kids, but when the moments come, it's not as though you can just substitute your own life with what you're doing on film. You have to go to some other place where it's bigger than your own life.

E-mail is far more convenient than the telephone, as far as I'm concerned. I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.

Even the simplest choice can make a jaw-dropping difference in our world.

When I was growing up, everybody in charge, my parents and teachers, had all survived the war, and they talked about the war like it was the Kraken - you know, this huge beast that roamed the earth during their formative years.

I did a 'Love Boat!' And based on my trip on the 'Love Boat,' I said, 'I'd just as soon not do 'Fantasy Island.''

Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.

It's not a mid-life crisis. It's a mid-life disaster. A mid-life crisis is when you wake up with everything and you go "I have everything but I'm still unhappy."

If you have to have a job in this world, a high-priced movie star is a pretty good gig.

Mama always said, dying was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't.

You learn more from getting your butt kicked than getting it kissed.

The nature of the movies is different than it was five years ago, and they're all driven by the possibilities of CGI, which means you can make anything happen on screen that you can possibly desire.

I must say that I do wrestle with the amount of money I make, but at the end of the day what am I gonna say? I took less money so Rupert Murdoch could have more?

I always wanted to play Lestrade of Scotland Yard 'cause he's a buffoon that gets to wear a uniform. I thought that would be fun.

Reading a script is usually as exciting as reading a boilerplate legal document, so when you read one that makes you feel as if you're seeing the movie, you know it's something different.

Believing is seeing and seeing is believing.

If I was to direct Ron Howard, I guarantee you, I would put him through a living hell every day. I would demand so much of him. We wouldn't quit until he leaves the set crying. Weeping! Spent!

If you look at romantic comedies as pieces of commerce, the audience is looking for wish fulfillment.

I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.

Being politically correct means always having to say you're sorry. Believe me, the power and pleasure and the emotion of this moment is a constant speed of light.

As a young man, even if I was going to see a play or a film by myself, I didn't feel like I was alone. There was something that was unfolding up there that brought me into it. And I recognised that. For those two hours, it made me feel like I belonged to something really good.

In the creative process you come to loggerheads and you just have to keep the process moving forward, even if that requires jumping on a plane and flying to London. It's a good thing it's fun, otherwise it would be too much work.

As a boy Id often spend my days biking on riverbeds and arroyos and come home exhausted. I realize now how much I took for granted having the natural world so close at hand. It wasnt until I moved away, first to New York and then to Los Angeles, that I realized how much I missed the outdoors.

Actors with political views are a dime a dozen.

Some people are cowards... I think by and large a third of people are villains, a third are cowards, and a third are heroes. Now, a villain and a coward can choose to be a hero, but they've got to make that choice.

Repertory theater is all about being part of the whole, one of the many colors in this vast palette.

There's no substitute for a great love who says, 'No matter what's wrong with you, you're welcome at this table.

I had to say no to 'Fantasy Island' back when I was doing 'Bosom Buddies.'

'Larry Crowne' is about as bummed out a human being as one can be when he loses his job. What he is able to enjoy is something that may not be available to everybody. But it's about the value of being willing to get and willing to give good advice.

But look, I was born in 1956, the peak year for births in US history. I think I'm very representative of many of the thought processes my generation have been through and, by and large, people of my age have had their imprint planted on the consciousness of western society for a long time.

One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.

I do not want to admit to the world that I can be a bad person. It is just that I don't want anyone to have false expectations. Moviemaking is a harsh, volatile business, and unless you can be ruthless, too, there's a good chance that you are going to disappear off the scene pretty quickly.

But I also think all of the great stories in literature deal with loneliness. Sometimes it's by way of heartbreak, sometimes it's by way of injustice, sometimes it's by way of fate. There's an infinite number of ways to examine it.

I'm not interested in doing something edgy with a capital E just so everyone knows, 'Oh, OK, now he's showing us he can do edgy.'

I don't cause riots, but I do cause confusion. People freeze when they spot me.

A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.

A lot of people would flee from what they think is award-show cheesiness, and I don't. I often joke that my speeches are very personal moments that play themselves out in front of billions of people.

A story has the opportunity to enlighten us, because as we connect the extraordinary moments on film with the ordinary moments of our lives, we ask ourselves, "What am I going to do the next time I'm scared? What would it be like to say goodbye to my family for the last time?"

All directors should have to act and all actors should have to direct, so that they can understand all these key things that come into play with whether you can meet your day.

All that most parents hope is that their children are happy, funny, well adjusted, and have a passion for something in their lives. What would negate everything is if the next generation that we're responsible for has a passionless existence. And that's cause for occasional sleepless nights.

All the kids are gone. It's the greatest thing that has ever happened to Mr. and Mrs. Tom Hanks. I'll tell you that right now. Second greatest after having the kids in the first place. When they go, holy smoke, it's like you're dating again. It's fantastic. Also, we were doing an awful lot of work.

An animatic is a process where every voice and every sound effect is added to rough animated drawings and it lasts exactly as long as the final movie. So you actually get to go into a screening room with the rest of the cast and you get to see it all at the same time.

Are you crying? There's no crying. There's no crying in baseball.

As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out.

Audiences crave something they've never seen before. That's what they want. They want to be dazzled. They want to go in either to have their expectations blown out of the water, or have no expectations and are dazzled by the decisions that we [filmmakers] made.

Before you go into what is essentially a competition, you have to have that confidence. You have to ask yourself, "Are they looking for a guy my height? My age? I've got a shot." And if there are nine guys auditioning and they're all gorgeous, I have an advantage, because gorgeous guys are a dime a dozen. But if they need someone else - like a goofy guy with bad hair who is just okay - then that's me. And finally, the other 2 percent who audition are geniuses that I could never touch.

But television, when I was doing it, was all about scoring. You had to make these jokes bang, do whatever you could to make the material really pop. And if it didn't, there was something wrong with the material, or with you.

College isn't necessary for everybody and it's only from what you put into it what you go there for.

Directing is a constant test of your communicative powers. You're constantly trying to explain people your vision of what you want and steer these tiny little details into a cohesive thing.

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.

Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there's less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what's the fun in eating anything you want to?

Every job requires a certain riding of a horse.

Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are.

Everyone says, "You have to work at relationships." Sometimes you've got to work, but if you're working 60 percent of the time and only enjoying it 40 percent...

'Forrest Gump' was great, it was fabulous. It lasted much longer than anybody thought, and brought me a degree of attention that no human being on the face of the planet deserves.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

Help and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

Help publicly. Help privately. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help, and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

Help, and you will make a huge impact in the life of the street, the town, the country and our planet. If only one out of four of each one hundred of you choose to help on any given day, in any given cause, incredible things will happen in the world you live in.

Hold the mirror up to nature. Human behavior is worthy of examination and celebration.

I am a lay historian by nature. I seek out an empirical reflection of what truth is. I sort of want dates and motivations and I want the whole story. But I've always felt, unconsciously, that all human history is that connection from person to person to person, event to event to event, and from idea to idea.