James Cromwell Quotes

Every day is perfect because there's no other day! As a friend of mine said, "Ride the horse in the direction it's going." When you do that, you realize that every moment, every breath, every sound, every encounter is a gift. You bloody well better enjoy it.

Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.

We don't need to eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could.

There are reasons to have rules and regulations. That I understand. Authority is a different thing. Authority is to maintain its own position by increasing its power and domination over those people it is supposedly protecting.

It's a wonderful thing as time goes by, to be with someone who looks into your face when you've gotten old and still sees what you think you look like.

I'm a character actor. Nobody's ever seemed to think of me as a leading man. I'm 6'6''. I've got a big nose. I'm gangly. I've got crooked teeth. That's certainly not Brad Pitt. I'm still around and alive, so if they need older guys, I guess they're thinking of me.

The kids know me from 'Babe,' but usually it is 'L.A. Confidential' that people remember, which was the second film I did. I have worked with some really good people and the films that I've done for the most part have been good.

When I did 'Babe' I wanted to talk about animal rights without going through some convoluted justifications about using animal products.

A vital film that needed to be made at this point in history and has been made magnificently.

Until men learn to celebrate and operate on the feminine aspect of themselves and stop the oppression of women, children, the environment, other species, we don't have a world to live in. It's not a world that anyone chooses to live in.

My friends joke because I will take my clothes off, at the drop of a hat.

Once a film is shot, the thing that mostly happens is that I go see all the things I would have fixed in my performance and sometimes, very rarely, I see a moment that surprise me and I go, "Oh, that's not bad. That was nice."

You don't just one day say, 'That's it, I'm doing this, I'm going to throw all my shoes out and I'm not eating honey and I won't drive my car because there are animal bones in the tires' because you'd drive yourself around the bend.

As a character actor, I've learned that you have to watch yourself because nobody else is watching. Nobody is concerned with you.

My definition of a character actor is - they never get the girl.

I'm an animal rights activist because I believe we won't have a planet if we continue to behave toward other species the way we do.

But if you really want to learn about life, get a cat. The way I think people should relate to animals is with a cat. Because the world is his.

What happens when you're naked is that people get that you're really just a human being. There are parts of it that are pretty appalling, and there are parts that are okay. That's what it looks like. If you can embrace and accept what people look like in the altogether, it's not so difficult to accept them with their clothes on.

First lead [in a movie] requires a different approach like trying not to give it all away in the first scene. It is a skill, a learned skill.

Pigs may not be as cuddly as kittens or puppies, but they suffer just as much.

I prefer to have playback, but sometimes, you can't have that under most circumstances. First, it is expensive because you need a playback operator and secondly, it threatens a lot of directors. I only watch my performance. I see what is necessary for me so that I can see it right at the moment and I can fix it. That appeals to me a great deal.

There is something intrinsically, systemically wrong with white, western culture, and if we don't fix it, it won't continue.

I don't look like a leading man, whatever they look like. It's changing a little.

Anybody can call me Jamie, and you have to watch it when you call me James. Then there's going to be a problem.

The attitude we have towards our personal pets as opposed to the animals that suffer under the factory farm is hypocritical and delusional.

The person is a mystery. What I'm playing is the person so I really get to tell you and show you and communicate to you who I think the real person is and that real person is me. The most important thing is to play the human being you are creating, which is my job.

If a kid ever realized what was involved in factory farming, they would never touch meat again.

Authority is the assumption that someone else knows better than you.

Often we're recreating what we think we're supposed to be as human beings. What we've been told we're supposed to be, instead of who we authentically are. The key about the creation of full self-expression is to be authentically who you are, to project that.

What is magnificent about humans is when they decide to turn and stand. If they respond with non-violence on principle and hold their ground, they are really magnificent.

For my entire career, I wanted to be a director. When I was in the theater, it was very difficult to get directing jobs, and I fell into the acting by default. I got in the habit of accepting whatever came my way. Not things that I disagreed with, though. It's not like I had aspirations - well, I did have aspirations to play Hamlet, which I ended up doing.

I play an 89-year-old man whose wife has Alzheimer's in a movie called 'Still.' I play a World War II veteran, I acted with my son and it's called 'Memorial Day.'

The risks of transporting deadly nuclear waste, the environmental justice impacts and the long-term health effects of both these projects are untenable...We cannot afford to be silent on these important issues.

I was so moved by the intelligence,sense of fun and personalities of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian.

I started in theatre. I was at Cleveland and I went to London for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth.

Usually, I'm the kind of actor where you show me once or twice, I can do it. I don't do it creatively, but I know how to do the process.

Studios are run by those who are way too old or mostly young, who don't think creatively.