Kevin Spacey Quotes

After graduation, I was floundering in L.A., doing stand-up comedy and working in a shoe store in the Valley.

One can never take the cynicism one comes across in life too seriously.

I find it sad that by not talking about who I sleep with, that makes me mysterious. There was a time when I would have been called a gentleman.

Im able to hang up the character with the costume at the end of the movie.

I cotton to the idea that people are much closer to being flawed; they have problems and dont always make the right choices.

I was terrible in my first play. After that experience, I had to face that I wasnt good enough to play with the big boys. I had to go away and learn, so I worked in regional theater for three years. I even understudied at the Kennedy Center.

Kids arent growing up with a sense of television as the aspirational place for their ideas.

Sometimes its the crazy people who turn out to be not so crazy.

The only thing worse than a loser is someone who won't admit he played badly.

At the end of the day, storytelling is actually very simple in its origin as long as there are people who want to tell stories and there are people who want to hear them.

It's the way I feel about acting. That we are given clues by a writer about someone's essence or persona and it's our job to try to figure out which of those clues are true, which of clues we decide to follow and which of those clues we think are red herrings, or only in the way another character thinks of that character.

A man can convince anyone hes someone else but never himself.

Games are advancing in terms of storytelling and trying to create a character, and its a brand new audience for me.

London is a very energising place to be.

Over a spell of about three years, I played a series of roles that were, for me, all very different, but most of them came out within a six-month period. They all dealt with a kind of dark territory that in some cases had been mined before in movies.

I suppose the most important thing is to stay interested. It's very easy in life if you get to a place where you're successful to hit the same groove on the record player over and over again because it's safe.

You can't turn a "no" to a "yes" without a "maybe" in between.

The control is shifting because of the democratisation of the internet. My industry is very good at building walls to stop people getting in.

It's much more interesting when you go to different places - make a left turn when nobody expects you to make a left turn, and make a right when nobody expects you to do that.

I think that acting is a very humanizing profession.

I have never played a game in my life.

Gaming is going into storytelling. It was a new audience.

I've never heard of a situation where, because somebody had a particular political belief, they didn't get a part. I think it's a bit of a myth.

The process of doing a play is an organic one and the process of doing a film is totally un-organic.

Pushing the boundaries of what is expected of you is important to me.

While data can only tell you what has happened in the past, it can in some ways give you a sense of what might be of interest to an audience in the future.

Mediocrity is the elephant in the room.

The work of John Lennon was marked by its exquisite beauty and by its brutal honesty.

No one’s personal life is in the public interest. It’s gossip, bottom line. End of story.

If you haven't turned rebel by twenty you've got no heart; if you haven't turned establishment by thirty you've got no brains!

The greatest sound in the theater is silence.

Our job, you know, in the entertainment profession is to try to illuminate and show people all sides of humanity, and it doesn't just mean that you can only do movies that are only about the good parts of us. You have to be able to eliminate the bad parts.

You've got to trust the ground you're standing on and the work you've done in telling your story. The goal should be to bring those thousands of people - viewers - together and make them one. When you feel that happening, it's usually in silence, not applause or laughter.

I terribly miss - we all miss, I think - somebody like the great producer Irving Thalberg. He had a foot in both camps: He understood us creative people. And he understood the money people.

Am I now supposed to go on Oprah and cry and tell you my deepest, darkest secrets because you want to know?

It's not even about being negative. It's just being unsettled, unsatisfied, unfinished.

The movies are not my first priority - the theater is.

I always remember is that no matter how good I might be in a movie, I'll never be any better. It's frozen. But in theatre I can be better tomorrow night, I can be better the night after that and I can be better in a week. The journey you go through as an actor is incredible.

Exposure to the arts and culture is enormously valuable.

Im attracted to things that are challenging and fun and interesting, and it certainly seems that audiences enjoy them as well.

I think people love it when anybody acts bad; its not particular to me.

You risk working with this director, you risk making this movie, you risk working with another actor you don't know. It makes your heart beat faster. And it keeps you interested.

Sometimes the person who is the most logical is the person whom we call insane.

People have different reasons for the way they live their lives. You cannot put everyone's reasons in the same box.

It's a great thriller or mystery, but on another level it's a film about the fact that, if you only look at a person through one lens, or only believe what you're told, you can often miss the truth that is staring you in the face.

It is not about whether you are an executive, a studio or a network. If you have a story or an idea you can build a following for it.

I think what we have seen in terms of gay teenagers committing suicide because of bullying is anguishing. I think young people, if they are feeling like they are confused, need to know that there are people to talk to and that there are places they can go and not feel alone. But I feel that they have just as many rights as I do to not be bullied.

If I'm sick of me, I can only imagine how other people feel.