William Hurt quotes:

I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people.

The Alexander Technique has helped me to undo knots, unblock energy and deal with almost paralysing stage fright

Being a father, being a friend, those are the things that make me feel successful.

I just looked at him because I want to be looking in someone's eyes when I die.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

People who have expertise or the luck to have rehearsal time with cameras have it over people who don't.

The simple fact of existence, of being aware that you are aware; this to me is the most astounding fact.

I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations.

I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging

I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging.

But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.

I have a film I want to direct. Gena Rowlands was going to do it with me a long time ago. It's about an older woman who's running a ranch in the west the old fashioned way.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

Heroes to me are guys that sit in libraries. They absorb knowledge and then the risks they take are calculated on the basis of the courage it took to become replete with knowledge.

Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you're just trying to get in and you're given so little time to get in gently, but it's always hard

I'm not comfortable with walking the red carpet in a tuxedo and seeing all the women with their boobs pushed up and all the men dressed as penguins - particularly when the subject of your film is the nature of violence and humanity.

I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision.

The thing is, I don't believe in most of what's done. The amount of financial and imaginative energy that's put into mediocrity is just amazing which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.

All I know is that my best work has come out of being committed and happy.

I was a science fiction junkie for a long time.

I need six weeks of rehearsal and women need nine months and it took me 15 years to figure that out.

I am so thrilled by the privilege of life, and yet at the same time I know that I have to let it go.

Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.

I was held hostage and almost executed by a man who was robbing us in the middle of the night.

Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I'm a failure.

If you're lucky, and not a lot of actors are these days, you get the chance to create a character.

I want to prove a point. That point is, actors are artists, not narcissists necessarily.

Great risks come in long term, tremendously assiduous, very courageous study.

Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you're just trying to get in and you're given so little time to get in gently, but it's always hard.

Also CSPAN is really the great treasure of the media as far as getting information.

And I don't want to use my troubles as an example of what to do and what not to do.

But it's also another myth to think that you should be as tight as a drum and not have any frailties or fragilities.

I demand minimal for paid rehearsal and not always six weeks either.

I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process

I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations

I need six weeks of rehearsal and women need nine months and it took me 15 years to figure that out

I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people

I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision

I want to prove a point. That point is, actors are artists, not narcissists necessarily

If you're lucky, and not a lot of actors are these days, you get the chance to create a character

It just seems like that because I do a lot of independent films that don't get to the mainstream.

Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I'm a failure

The amount of financial and imaginative energy that's put into mediocrity is just amazing, which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.

The art is about opening, it is not about prejudice, it is not about contempt prior to investigation. It's about endlessly trying to keep from having contempt by admitting that you don't know. Even if you know a lot compared to some other people, usually, I think, the honest experience would be: "God, how little I know! And how much I need to have compassion for myself and for other people."

The greatest single human gift is the ability to chase down our dreams.

The perfection in theater is that it's over the second it's done

What's really frustrating with movies is the lack of improvement.

When I look at a person, or a character, it is in every case the beginning of an endless journey. And I don't suppose I know where that starts. I know that I have to, like every other person, make decisions and have opinions. But I'm real careful to not judge crassly or cheaply someone else's life.

You don't look at it as the size of the role. Quantity is not the point. You can be as thorough in 30 seconds as you can in three hours.