Tommy Lee Jones
25 quotes
Biography
Thomas Lee Jones is an American actor, film director, and former football player. He has received various accolades including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
"I don't think I would describe my sense of humor. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd do."
"A thousand years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they knew the Earth was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you knew we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
"The old-timers thought, Well, fire's bad; we'll get rid of it. That was certainly a mistake. We have to get it back into the system somehow, in safe, controlled ways. That's what I'm into now."
"Create turf, save water. Those are the two main principles. And, you know, keep everything alive. Maintain a game habitat. That's important so that you have an entire system at work. Cattle are going to do better, oddly enough, if the birds are doing good and the deer are doing good. You try to manage the whole thing."
"I'm one of those people who feels that agriculture is a creative act. It's a very fine art — that's the way I approach it."
"It makes me feel like a very special person, that I'm able to make my living with my imagination. I developed a big respect for my calling while I was in school, and it remains with me to this day."
"I'm really concerned about the quality of education in the United States. I think it's going down, and I don't think we spend enough money on it. It's unhealthy for our society that we remove ourselves more and more every day from books, from reading, from writing. All areas of education need more emphasis. I think we're a bit lazy here in America. I believe in the ideal of the classic liberal education, and I also think athletics are very important to the education of young people."
"I refuse to be pessimistic. I don't believe in it. I hope that we can find a way to keep from destroying the earth."
"I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival."
"I fear other actors who are not prepared. And I fear directors who are afraid."
"What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold."
"My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative."
"My home town is very small and very remote and we don't have a movie house."
"All my life I've had the privilege to make my living with my imagination, and the most important thing has been to see my creative life grow. I was educated to do that and have lived accordingly."
"If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common."
"I don't direct movies for a living."
"I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces."
"I've made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!"
"I want to make movies about my country from my point of view."
"If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common."
"If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work."
"The quality of one's emotional life changes over the years, doesn't it? But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In the larger scope of things, there's a sense of fulfillment to living a creative life. So I guess that's what keeps me going."
"I do not have a sense of humor of any recognizable sort."
"In the course of American history, great steps are taken by ordinary people, and ordinary people are not perfect."
"You should never ask a horse or an actor to do something they cannot do. Wisdom will teach you to find out what they can do and then make it easy for them."