Billy Bob Thornton Quotes

After you've done 60-something movies, you're always looking for something different.

I've led a very eclectic life.

I'm not a TV junkie outside of sports and history really and stuff like that.

You have to really know what you're saying.

Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn't let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There wasn't one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman - you're perfect!

[The lyrics and melody] usually come a little simultaneously, but I would say the lyrics are first; usually I have the idea for a story in my head, or few lines.

When people wear shoes that don't fit them, it says something about their soul. Generally, I think it means they are good people.

I've danced one time in my life. It was the most mortifying experience I ever had.

Usually when you're playing a character, you think a lot about their backstory.

I've never heard of anybody smoking a joint and going on a rampage. It makes you lie around on the floor and look at the ceiling. What's wrong with that?

I've been married five times, and people think that's some bizarre thing, yet I've got buddies who refuse to get married and have sex with 15 people a week. I'm like "Which is better?" At least I was trying.

As most characters are that I play, there's a lot of me in it, anyway.

I don't have a fear of flying; I have a fear of crashing.

I've really dreamed of doing television. All of us do television, coming up. But when I was coming up, television was a black hole for actors. Now, television has a certain cache. Now everybody wants to be on TV because they're doing adult dramas. If you're an actor, it's like, "Well, get me on television," because it's the only place you can do it and also make a living at it. If my kids need shoes, I better do a TV show because I damn sure don't make any money with independent films.

If you love somebody let them know every day.

Getting the nomination is like gravy. Winning would be like whatever is better than gravy.

I am fairly embraced by the Hollywood community, and I love making movies and I love acting, but I'm not real crazy about the Hollywood system. So the fact that they embrace me is a shock to me because I tell them to kiss my ass all the time. I don't understand why they haven't thrown me out on my ear. The other thing is I don't participate much. I have very few friends within the movie community. I hang out with some guys I've known forever. They're all broke and eat me out of house and home. But I stay home mostly and I don't go to the parties. Maybe that preserves me.

My songs aren't built around choruses or hooks or anything like that. That's kind of how I write screenplays too.

They were on the set of Bad Santa, but I tried to keep the headphones away from them. My kids have seen Sling Blade, Armageddon, Bandits and Friday Night Lights. They have not seen Monster's Ball and nor will they ever. Even when they are 60. I will leave it in my will.

Anytime you get a chance to play some extreme character, in any direction, it's always a great blessing.

Usually with film writing I start with characters, and set about writing their story.

The independent film business is pretty much gone. Now you can do it in a format where you actually get to develop a character over a period of time.

Acting is playing - it's actually going out on a playground with the other kids and being in the game, and I need that. Writing satisfies that part of myself that longs to sit in my room and dream.

The great movies that I want to do now are being made for $2.5-million budgets.

If you look at a character as a mountain over there that you have to climb, then I think you've lost 50 percent of the air.

Now the idea in the movie world is to make things the same. And in the TV world, the idea is to do something different, so... that's why I'm here!

The ones that work out really and ones that become something to the audience, those are the most important people.

People think you have to be tortured or miserable to write, but I'm finding that I get inspired a lot more these days before I'm happy.

If Michelle Pfeiffer gave Mel Gibson a vial of blood to wear around his neck in a movie you'd think it was terribly romantic, everyone would cry and they'd win awards. But in real life if someone does that they'd be considered weird.

I was the fattest baby in Clark County, Arkansas. They put me in the newspaper. It was like a prize turnip.

When I was coming up, if you were on a TV show, that meant something was wrong with your career. Now it means something's right with your career.

Man, I was drowning in sadness. And Angelina, she lifted me right up out of there.

Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends, and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny, and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not good.

I generally have lyrics first, but you can't help that when you're writing lyrics you start to get a melody in your head. So they come kind of simultaneously.

I don't think anybody chooses to be an underdog.

Marketing is the devil.

I love acting with all my heart and I love music with all my heart.

I'm not really a guy who wants to be a director, anyway.