Robert Downey, Jr. Quotes

I take some pride in... representing myself exactly how I would like to have my son remember me to his kids.

When you have a good script you're almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.

I, personally, would be shocked if we went to the end of the tape now and I didn't have at least one... Look, even if I don't get one directly, eventually they're just going to have to give me one when I get old. So no matter how you slice it, I'm getting one.

At the end of the day, anything I think I'm sacrificing I'm just giving up because it makes me feel better.

I walk by studio heads and they actually look and put their hand out now, like maybe I should be on their radar.

Listen, smile, agree, then do whatever you were going to do anyway.

I felt like a fighter who was training for a title bout that had not been booked yet.

Im thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, Why stop at one? I don't like being limited in that way. Therefore, I'm considering a platton of monkeys, so that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing feces around.

Growing up is something that you do your whole life. I want to always feel that I can be a kid if I want. Growing up has some negative connotations. Like, you're not supposed to roll around on the ground anymore. You're not supposed to make fun of yourself. You're not supposed to ride a bicycle. But I'm a Toys-R-Us kid.

I would say that among my many huge emotional miscalculations was my taking a film career for granted. It is the most awesome privilege to be able to use one's imagination and wit, physicality and musicality, conscious brain and unconscious instinct in the service of a work that has a chance to move and excite and amuse and delight people all over the world, including long after we're dead. What a noble calling! And I felt it was just there for me as a kind of given, some sort of inherited birthright-when in reality it's the most magnificent luxury.

I've always been a fella who put most of my eggs in one basket and then take a dump in the basket but I really don't know.

I remember when people said, "Man, that's a powerful scene in the movie!" and I was like, "We just shot this thing before lunch, I don't know, he tears a log apart, I said some words".

Give me a scotch, I'm starving.

I make faces for cash and chicken.

The old saying is true, behind every good man theres an incredible woman.

I know very little about acting. I'm just an incredibly gifted faker.

Sometimes everything you need to know to be an actor in your mid-forties, you learn before you were 15 years old.

The lesson is that you can still make mistakes and be forgiven.

Look, even bad years are pretty good years I think.

If you're anything like me there are days when you're convinced you know more than everyone around you. Which is often confirmed by your interactions with people.

Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn't mean you have to stay there.

Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you're here or out in the world dealing with problems. It's second nature for me now. I don't even get to the point where there's a problem.

I had this bad-boy-from-New York vibe going, dressed like a punk rocker with spiky hair.

Nothing's a break for me. Not even the breaks are breaks.

Pick a dysfunction and it's a family problem.

I never know when the seeds are being laid, I'm just like, "Wow, that's a pretty cool scene. Is that? Are we laying seeds here?"

I don't think I'm in any position to give anybody advice about anything.

I know if you talk faster and use more ten-dollar words than everyone around you, you convince half of them that they should shut up because you know what you're talking about.

McDonald's being the official restaurant of the Olympics is like smoking being the official medicine of cancer.

I wouldn't want to see anything irreparable happen, but I also like it when seemingly irreparable thing occur and men and women find a way to move past it.

I saw School of Rock, and I was like, why haven't I worked with Richard Linklater already? Then by the time I got him I was like, I'm really pissed off I feel like you owe me some retroactive swag. He gave me the 10-year anniversary "Dazed and Confused" T-shirt, which I still wear with relish.

Smoking dope and smoking coke, you are rendered defenseless. The only way out of that hopeless state is intervention.

It's weird when one movie that's connected to another doesn't reference that movie at all.

Discipline for me is about respect. It's not even about self-respect; it's about respect for life and all it offers.

Every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I'm in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing, and that's the character.

I loved it, it's such fun. I like that people are seeing it and then talking about it. Like when I took my son and his friends to see Napoleon Dynamite last year, we spent the next six weeks trying to explain it.

And I think for a man whose native tongue is Spanish to be able to put together a phrase like 'cultural genocide' just speaks to how bright he is.

I need a lot of support... Life is really hard, and I don't see some active benevolent force out there. I see it as basically a really cool survival game. You get on the right side of the tracks, and you now are actually working with what some people would call magic.

I have a sense of destiny that you are led to the things you are supposed to do.

I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal, yet all those years I was chasing after it I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends and family.

It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and I like the taste of metal

Worrying is like praying for something you don't want to happen. I have such an overwhelming sense that if you're in the right state of heart, the next right thing appears to you.

You can't go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary, and really understand it, and come out a liberal.

Sometimes you just gotta be drop-kicked out of the nest.

I think paranoia goes from generation to generation. It's convenient to imagine that there's a few people controlling everything, that way it's manageable and small. But that's not life, life is messy.

I have a really interesting political point of view, and its not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you cant go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You cant. I wouldnt wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics every since.

It's hard to get out of the barrel. It's slippery around the edges and people are happy to see you fall back in.

I'm not a poster boy for good behavior and recovery in Hollywood, I'm just a guy who knows he has a lot to be grateful for.