Ben Affleck Quotations | Page 2

The value of work, and of always learning something new, and what it takes to achieve excellence. I really believe in those things that you have to dedicate yourself and spend time, that excellence is elusive. It's a little maddening, to try to have that level of discipline in your life, and I don't succeed all the time. But I do try.

I have definitely noticed that I care less about certain things. Other actors are like: "You can't do that", or "You can't do this. This will position you in the wrong way." That's not my thing. And obviously so, because you can see I don't craft or cultivate my career.

I never really thought of myself as a beefcake kind of guy.

My mother always accused me of being in love with the sound of my own voice. When we went on road trips, she'd be like, 'Stop singing. Be quiet, you're talking just to hear yourself speak.' It was probably true. I like to ramble on, which is probably why I'm well suited to interviews. You know, there's no other forum where you're literally supposed to sit down and just talk for hours about yourself. I love it.

People ascribe a certain kind of silliness to the movie business. Everybody feels like, "In the movies, they do crazy stuff."

People think you have this exciting and romantic life, because you project this exciting, romantic life on screen. But in reality you're just doing the same thing as everyone else - you know, sitting around watching TV with your gut hanging out, playing with your kid, or even sitting on the toilet. You know what's weird? Even I'm not that interested in my personal life any more.

Matt and I have set a date. Matt and I will tie the knot New Years Day in the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts. Reserve your hotel rooms now. I will be having a gay marriage.

On playing Batman and his daughter: If I was doing the sequel to Frozen I would be a hero. My two older daughters could give a sh-t about Batman and they've now passed that affection onto my son. He's always like, 'Papa, can I watch Frozen?' And I'm like, 'No, dude, it's not on again!'.

A lot of my shows in the past have been more theatrical than others, but you really get the bug for it when you direct on stage.

They say money can't buy happiness? Look at the smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby!

Its not who you love. Its how.

The thing about online gambling is that it's never away, it's always accessible. And so, if you have an issue with gambling, it's designed to take advantage of that.

I have three women in the house. I get to be wrong three times a day.

Memories, all those little experiences make up the fabric of our lives and on balance, I wouldn't want to erase any of them, tempting though it may be.

There are two things for a marriage to be good. One is to work hard on it. The other one is to marry above you. And I succeeded at both of those.

There is currency to celebrity, or celebrity is a currency... You can spend it in a lot of ways, or you can squander it. You can be taxed, as well. I really started thinking long and hard about how to use that currency as long as I had it.

I have a promptness problem. I am a promptness-free zone.

I'm in the worst place you can be. I sell magazines and not movie tickets.

Directing is monumentally complicated and it's a function of all the time you pay to it. I think it would be great to do a movie I'm not in, I could just eat Fritos and just say, 'yeah, it's good!' Some day.

I like the incongruity of how in Iran, these people we think of as being revolutionaries or fanatics or whatever are just as aware of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader as our people are back home.

Clearly, there's a real onus on you to do something correctly when everybody, at least in the United States, had a really clear, specific idea of what this guy looked like - and even more so, what he looked like as Clark Kent and as Superman. You have this whole vast audience of people who would be acutely aware of any deviation whatsoever and probably holding you to a slightly higher standard as a result.

I'm human, just like anybody else.

Studios are used to have an investment in you, an actual, literal investment in an actor. You paid them some money, you had a contract with them and you were almost like a commodity.

You have to be kind to people. Treat them decently. There's no excuse for not.

The best cure for a hangover is something one straight man can't do for another straight man.

The first Star Wars movie had come out in 1977 and had become this huge phenomenon with all the toys and everything - it just kind of swept America.

I think I'd rather tell the truth and say what I believe in and make people unhappy than sort of pretend to think something else to accommodate them and try to be liked. That's just the way it goes and I don't think I'm any great champion of anything, but if they're going to put me on a show, I'm going to say what I think.

On the day he had colonic irrigation: 'I feel I lost my virginity that day in so many ways.'

It's been reinforced to me, and it's a little cliche, but I've learned that you can't make a movie that even works, much less that's good, without really good writing and really good acting. That lesson has led me to not be distracted, so much, by the other stuff going on in filmmaking and to focus on the essence of a story, and the words and the events and the way that those are interpreted by the actors. That philosophy has taken me to a place that I really like.

It wasn't my childhood fantasy to work with Truffaut or be in obscure films. I like Midnight Run better than I like The Bicycle Thief. It was films like Die Hard and Bladerunner that made me want to be an actor.

Also, getting the chance to play a supporting part meant that I didn't have to do as much as the protagonist, such as running around telling the story. [As the protagonist] you push the story whereas, paradoxically, as a character part, you have a chance to explore some of the nuance and some of the more complicated aspects of a character.

Just because a lot of people know something nominal doesn't make it important. A lot of people know what a pencil sharpener is, but that doesn't make it the most important invention of the 20th century.

You have to pay people real money.

Sometimes the people we meet change us forever.

I recognize that Hollywood is not about seniority. Often it's not even a meritocracy. It's about what you did yesterday. You have a couple of misses, and suddenly it's impossible to find a hit. So the swings are gigantic. But I've always understood it as such, and navigated it as such.

Persia is very different from the Arab Middle East in terms of architecture and language. Even though we think of them as one big Middle Eastern area, in truth, Persia's quite distinct.

I never know what my next move will be in Hollywood. It's such an unpredictable town. People get jaded and lost and I've been able to stay a float. I think the next logical step in my career would be to start my own filmmaking empire like (Harvey Weinstein) and (Bob Weinstein) did so many years ago. I think if only the unions weren't so strict in Boston, I'd set up shop there and make films of a certain quality you don't see represented these days. I'm full of ideas and dreams.

I'm not known for having great relationships with ex-girlfriends, but I've been able to continue one with (Gwyneth Paltrow) that's really valuable.

I dyed my hair for photo tests... I kept it because when am I ever going to be blond again?

I like that best as I am so hairy.

If I could be somebody, it'd definitely be Brad Pitt. I love the way he looks.

A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can't. Either way a sale is made, the only question is: Who is gonna close?

I've seen high and lows. When things go well that doesn't make me feel like some genius. Nor will I allow the next disappointment to make me feel like a complete failure.

I don't go back and look at the monitor between every take; I wait until I feel like we finally got it right: "Let me stop and look at that last one on the monitor."

Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's... it was just luck really that she happened to the film.

(As) a director who is a writer, I have respect for writers, so I'm less likely to step on an idea or a line.

I like to shoot until we have a relaxed environment on the set, and I try to schedule that.

(I) try new things and give myself permission to fail and experiment because only that way can you get really successful.

You get old, you slow down.

Anybody tells you that money is the root of all evil doesn't have any.

You don't know what the pattern of flour and chicken is going to be, but you know you're going to get some good fried chicken.

Family is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't mean you can't do other stuff in your life. In fact, having a family makes whatever other thing you have that much richer. If it was just me, I'd be home alone and think, 'Well, something good happened at work,' but it's nicer to share it with people you love.

I find forgiveness to be really healthy.

No actor forgets the times he couldn't get a job. I think everyone doing this operates from that fear. You don't want that momentum to stop when you get it

Directing first film was terrified, it was really very scary because there is a lot of responsibility. I think I was terrified because I wanted it to work so much. A lot of actors direct movies but I thought the stakes were kind of higher for me because I really, really cared. I just worked as hard as I possibly could on every single thing, every single day. I said that if this failed it would not be because I didn't work as hard as I possibly could...every day.

I get to the point where I feel relaxed, and then I just shoot a ton of material and make a lot of different choices.

When you are in your 20s and you're not married with kids, you're having fun. But when you're in your 30s and you're not married and don't have kids, you begin to develop a Peter Pan complex. As you grow older, you have more responsibilities and you have to step up to them.

Such a senseless and tragic day. My family and I send our love to our beloved and resilient Boston.

If you think Hollywood is depressing and corrupt, politics is really depressing and corrupt -- and fueled even more than Hollywood by money -- if that's possible.

It takes time to develop a sense of humor, shared world views.

My mother went to Radcliffe, and rather than just trying to get rich, she wanted to be a teacher and taught for over 30 years in the public schools. She's definitely got some war stories.

Everyone has a different approach, but I like to shoot a lot of film anyway.

It's important for me to try my hand at philanthropy because I want to leave behind a record of someone who did more than just gobble up stuff for themselves. I realized that a life lived for yourself is not much of a life,

I'm trying to make people feel welcome and feel valued.

You wasted $150,000 on an education you could have got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library.

No matter how much you change, you still got to pay the price for the things you’ve done.

It doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life, because that's going to happen. All that matters is that you gotta get up.

I do the same thing for myself (as an actor) that I do for others.

Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.

I want to thank my wife who I don't normally usually associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It's good. It is work, but it's the best kind of work, and there's no one I'd rather work with!

One of the ways that I could contribute was to shill some memorabilia, and the other was to talk to you and try to get people to pay attention to this auction.

I am a first-time director given an opportunity to pursue an artistic ambition I would not likely have the chance to elsewhere. The budget is excruciatingly tight, I am regularly abused and I expect to be fired sometime before we shoot. It's nice to see that, at Miramax, continuity has been maintained.

I dyed my hair for photo tests, ... I kept it because when am I ever going to be blond again?

He used to be, actually a very successful actor. ... One of the things that's encouraging about that is it represents citizen politicians, people that aren't career politicians.

Jackson said, laughing. ''You're both up against a deadline.

I think it's great that you folks down here at WSAV are putting together this kind of telethon. It's representative of what I've seen people doing all over the Low Country around here.

I was glad I did, except when I was wandering around in my real life with this big red Afro. I looked like Ronald McDonald.

You can just start to feel really pregnant. Like you are the hugest person on the face of the planet,

The thing that kept bringing us back to Pete's movie is that it was a story about real people. It (also) had a very specific locale; Chicago is to this movie what Boston was to 'Good Will Hunting,' ... It was enormously heartfelt and, ultimately, nobody could deny being moved by his story.

Sometimes it's Britney Spears and sometimes it's Carrie Fisher. I can't tell if I've got a Lolita complex or an Oedipus complex.

On contract clauses: 'There's all this language where you can't jump out of a plane or ride motorcycles. You have to go home and just sit there.

It's not something that can be ameliorated with the one telethon we did the month afterward. It's a continuing process.

I kinda see my current position like this: 'Here's your five minutes in the toy store, so you gotta do all the good movies you can before Chuck Woolery rings the bell.'

In keeping with Miramax tradition, I was instructed to find the 'hottest young stars around' to cast in the movie. I got a list of two names: Michelle Monaghan and Casey Affleck. I was lucky enough to get them both.

I feel horrified and sad and a great deal of empathy and lots of frustration.

You couldn't breathe. The lights didn't work and the radio transmitters would emit this incredibly high-pitched white noise.