Matt Damon Quotes

Paranoid is what people who are trying to take advantage call you in an effort to get you to drop your guard.

The director's in charge of every single decision [in film]. It's a dictatorship.It's a benevolent dictatorship, but it's true. It's every single shot. There's nothing arbitrary.

I'm becoming far more interested in just functionality and making sure my body is as strong as it can be so I can swing my kids around and not worry about aches and pains.

I love shooting, when the character is interesting and the script is interesting, but the research beforehand is really fun. The whole process makes me anxious and restless, and I have trouble sleeping, just trying to figure out the character.

If Brad Pitt walked down the street, cars would crash into each other. I'm really lucky not to have to deal with that.

If anybody wanted to photograph my life, they'd get bored in a day.

I think what's important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters and how you treat other people matters.

I'd love to be a dad. I hope I'd be great at it. That's every man's fear, yet his most important job.

As a struggling actor, youre not looking for parts that define you; youre just looking for work.

As actors, we react to the material that's out there, and I probably just react more strongly to things that I feel will have some social value.

The only sci-fi movie that I've ever been offered that, had circumstances been different, I would have definitely done, was 'Avatar.' And I literally couldn't do it because of my schedule. But listening to James Cameron talk about 'Avatar' was so fascinating. Because he literally invented the world in his mind - and it literally existed.

I'm always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it's a director's medium, and if they don't want to hear from me I just step back.

I've passed on a lot of huge-money jobs. Money doesn't enter into the decision-making. If I do a big blockbuster, it's about how big an audience you'll get and where you can take them.

The very first big photo shoot I ever did was with Bruce Weber. I couldn't believe this guy was taking my picture, so when he told me to get in the bathtub, I just did. It's only now, looking back, that I realise, you don't have to do everything people tell you.

I should have done it years ago. It's amazing I didn't even want cigarettes anymore.

My heart goes out to the people of the city of Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones in such a senseless and heartless way.

Before the days of video village a director should stand right next to the camera, look with his naked eye and if he sees something that is real to him, he'd look up at the [camera] operator and if he gives the look to indicate he'd seen it to, then you print and you'd move on.

Our kids are growing up with more privilege than we had; that's true for most of my friends in L.A. I don't know any actor who grew up with any particular privilege, so everyone wrestles with this. And I think, a lot of times, it's about being patient with your kids.

Most films and directors lose their nerve and want to indicate [emotions] a bit more, to show that their story is clear. I'm not saying that's a good thing; as an actor its anathema to good acting, but to have someone with the confidence to say that should I be utterly natural and minimalist is great.

Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage

If I had a bucket list, I'd say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be No. 1.

You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.

Maybe if we sit out for the next few years and let Clint Eastwood get a little experience, he's going to be a good director.

I think Clint Eastwood is a well oiled machine. Everyone that works with him has the same reaction, "Can I stay with you?"

I think what makes a good actor's director is somebody who understands what I'm doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.

And you know, we were talking about American identity, and where we've come from and where we are and where we're headed. We knew that we wanted to have a hopeful ending and we wanted it to be pro-community, and a pro-democracy type of movie.

I knew very little about Rugby. But, I think it helps in terms of an American audience the game is enough like football in that it's a battle for field position and you score by running into what looks a lot like an end zone. I think in terms the nuance of the game, Americans won't get that stuff. I think in terms of the peanut butter and jelly version of what you need to know, I think it's pretty clear.

All you have in the end is to look back and like the choices you've made.

There are people who just collect a bunch of footage and then edit it later. You definitely feel more protected when a director is moving on when you've actually felt something happen and you know they're watching intently.

Some people just see the glory and they don't want to know about the story.

Now that I have kids, I'm probably more overprotective than I've ever been. My wife's nickname for me is "red alert." I sometimes check just to see if the kids are breathing. But I try not to be a helicopter parent.

Clint Eastwood enables and allows things to happen. You walk on some sets and it's like walking into an emergency room. It's like, "Come on guys, we're just making a movie here." That tension runs into the performances and into the movie.

Oftentimes when I'm deciding to do a movie, the main thing is really, that I look at, is the director. I've come to feel that more and more. The more movies I've done and the older I've - the more experience I have, I always knew it was a director's medium, and I always said that.

I've been really lucky. I'll completely forget that I'm a celebrity. And then something will happen, and I'll go, 'Oh, right.'

If we listen to the better angels of our nature, there are creative and good solutions to serious problems.

The ideal life is you don't sell a single magazine, nobody's interested, but they want to come see your movie. Because that gives you true freedom.

I never wanted to do the same kind of movies over and over anyway, so my theory on it all is I'm just gonna try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing.

People do things in the names of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn't that simple. So they end up doing things that aren't necessarily good. Even if they think they're doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective they can look barbaric and crazy.

I need to know if she [Sarah Palin] thinks dinosaurs were here four thousand years ago... because she's going to have the nuclear code.

The thing that I like about Germany is that Germans are so much like us. It's not like going to some other countries, where the differences are overwhelming and you walk around in a fog. Germans are so similar to Americans.

Fame is really strange. One day you're not famous, and then the next day you are, and the odd thing is that you know intellectually that nothing in the world is different. What mattered to you yesterday are the same things that matter today, and the rules all still apply - yet everyone looks at you differently.

Liberty is a soul’s right to breathe.

If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it's got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It's not therapy - it's supposed to be a communal piece of entertainment.

I grew up in and the teachers. I think I was very lucky. I think I had a lot of social capital, and so when I found myself in this position of influence, I just - then I started to engage a bit with some of the problems in the world and realize that I could actually have an impact.

The whole thrust of theatre is different, just because the writing is so much more respected in a play. Whereas in movies - and having been the writer, I can say from experience - the writer is lower down on the food chain.

I've been left alone, even by the paparazzi, because what sells is sex and scandal. Absent that, they really don't have much interest in you. I'm still married, still working, still happy.

Poverty feeds into the clean-water crisis, which contributes to hunger, and so on. There's undeniable interconnectivity among these issues. Just one of these problems can be deadly on its own, but in the most disadvantaged areas there is a perfect storm of problems. And it takes its greatest toll on children.

If you work at something, you get better at it.