Top 50 Tom Hanks Quotes

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.

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.

I’ve made over 20 movies, and 5 of them are good.

The nature of motion capture is only going to work for certain films. It’s not going to put any other type of movies out of business.

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

My job has always been to hold a mirror up to nature.

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.

A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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 understand the concept of optimism. But I think with me what you get is a lack of cynicism.

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.

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

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.

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

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.’

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.

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

If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.

That’s what’s nice about directing a film and having it done: There’s nothing more I can do about it. It’s done. That’s it. All I can do is let it go and hope that people are kind to it.

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

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.

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.

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.

There was a period of time in Los Angeles when I wondered if I was just going to lose everything.

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

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.

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.

Yeah! I got type-two diabetes! I’m sure there’s going to be some media scandal now, saying I got it because I gained and lost weight for movie parts or something – but I doubt that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I want to have a good time myself. I don’t want to dread going to work no matter what the gig is. I think, selfishly, I will make sure that I have a good time; how about that?

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.

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!

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.’

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?