Harrison Ford Quotes & Sayings

Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice. — Harrison Ford

There's no independent satisfaction without the success of the film itself. The feel that you have done the best you can to support the film. — Harrison Ford

You get a sense of reference there. You feel part of something that's got order and balance and harmony to it. All the distraction and noise, all the confusion of misplaced, misdirected energy just don't happen there. — Harrison Ford

The trick of this thing and the beauty of this thing is that it's a cowboy movie first and then stuff happens. Even after stuff happens it doesn't change - it hasn't suddenly changed into another kind of movie. It's still a cowboy movie. And that's what's incredible about it because nobody has done that before, that's new territory. — Harrison Ford

I want to go back to the Pantanal in Brazil. I've never been to sub-Saharan Africa. I'd like to take my Caravan over there and do a flying safari. I've never flown to Alaska. — Harrison Ford

I have relationships with people I'm working with, based on our combined interest. It doesn't make the relationship any less sincere, but it does give it a focus that may not last beyond the experience. — Harrison Ford

There are a lot of different paths through the jungle, but ... the simplest thing you can do is make yourself useful. Be easy to work with, be a hard worker and help people get the job done. And do it with as much passion and quality as you can. — Harrison Ford

I do not go to the gym. I do not train. I am not that careful about what I eat. I cannot give you any advice about keeping fit. The best advice I can give is choose your parents wisely. — Harrison Ford

Really, what are the options? Levi's or Wranglers. And you just pick one. It's one of those life choices. — Harrison Ford

I had no expectation of the level of adulation that would come my way. I just wanted to make a living with a regular role in a television series. — Harrison Ford

All my friends were going off to be professionals, and I said I wanted to be an actor. — Harrison Ford

I continue to develop some things for myself and also take advantage of good parts as they come along. — Harrison Ford

I don't take trouble at all to conform a screenplay to my iconography. I don't say, "We can't do that - the audience wouldn't accept it." I try to take the limitations of what is required to play a leading character and then screw with them. — Harrison Ford

An icon means nothing to me. I don't understand what it means to anybody actually. It seems like a word of convenience. It seems to attend to the huge success of certain kinds of movies that I did, but there's no personal utility in being an icon. I don't know what an icon does, except stand in a corner quietly accepting everyone's attention. I like to work, so there's no utility in being an icon. — Harrison Ford

I think people only have so much interest in anybody, and if you barrage them in between the times you have something to offer them you become a personality rather than an actor - much more short-lived. I only work once a year. And that's enough. — Harrison Ford

On the first 'Indiana Jones' movie, I tore an ACL in one of my knees - can't remember which knee. The scene in which I was fighting the big German mechanic on an airplane called a flying wing, I was run over by the landing gear and injured my knee, but I can't remember which one it was. Lots of bumps and injuries along the way. — Harrison Ford

I went down to Venezuela and ended up renting a helicopter and flew with my sons to the tops of the tepuis, these freestanding jungle mesas, 'lost worlds' as it were. In fact, it's almost impossible to access them without one. So we were able to land and spend some time there. We were trapped for about six hours by clouds that came in. — Harrison Ford

You have to have the darkness for the dawn to come. — Harrison Ford

What I think is important for a young person is to figure out how to be useful and not be so concentrated on themselves, but to see what they can do to make the overall collaboration with all the other people involved in a movie work better. — Harrison Ford

I like working. It is where I feel useful. I have no plans to cut down. I am happy with what I do. There will be a lot more of me yet, that's for sure. — Harrison Ford

Why do I ask for directions? Because I hate wasting time. — Harrison Ford

I was one of the few people who thought Star Wars was going to work, and I hadn't even seen any special effects. — Harrison Ford

I wanted to live the life, a different life. I didn't want to go to the same place every day and see the same people and do the same job. I wanted interesting challenges. — Harrison Ford

I never followed baseball very much. As a kid, I never followed sports. — Harrison Ford

What I look for is identifying what the utility of a character is to the telling of the story overall. If I can identify that from reading the script, then I've got a clear idea of whether or not I think the character is worth playing. — Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford may be getting old, but he can fight like a 28 year old man. — Harrison Ford

If you're going to define me properly, you must think in terms of my failures as well as my successes. — Harrison Ford

I don't think nostalgia is very useful to me. There is a story to be told, there's behaviour to create or to bring to the screen that will help tell that story, and nostalgia is just not really a big part of my emotional package. — Harrison Ford

What I hate is the loss of anonymity. — Harrison Ford

I'm like a fireman. When I go out on a call, I want to put out a big fire, I don't want to put out a fire in a dumpster. — Harrison Ford

I have children. I have other concerns. I have other focuses. I really feel very sympathetic and I would love to be able to help but I don't see this as the opportunity, having done 'Extraordinary measures', for me to suddenly leap on a soap box and begin to talk about the pharmaceutical industry or the desperate plight of sick children. I do what I can in my world but I don't have the bona fides to do that right now. — Harrison Ford

I think parenting is a huge responsibility. It was in my time when I was growing up and there still continues to be that responsibility. — Harrison Ford

The only ambition I ever had going into and committing to wanting to be an actor was to live my life. — Harrison Ford

Behind every great man is a woman. Telling him he's not so hot. — Harrison Ford

I played maybe one and a half games of Little League. The whole atmosphere of anxious parents and more anxious children was just too much for me. — Harrison Ford

For some directors, I'm the actor from hell. — Harrison Ford

I'm not a poster boy for Conservation International. I'm a working member of the board. — Harrison Ford

The third time you say a thing it sounds like a lie. — Harrison Ford

If you're asking me to acknowledge that I've gotten older, I can do that. — Harrison Ford

I've never been bothered by proximity to special effects and I've never felt disadvantaged by them. They're all part of a movie, and when the movie's under control I don't feel upstaged by them. — Harrison Ford

I love the comic opportunities that come up in the context of a father-son relationship. — Harrison Ford

The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film. — Harrison Ford

Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist. — Harrison Ford

The only thing that I have done that is not mitigated by luck, diminished by good fortune, is that I persisted, and other people gave up. — Harrison Ford

Never again will I allow our political self-interest to deter us from doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not political weapons. And to those who would use them, your day is over. We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate and we will no longer be afraid. It's your turn to be afraid. — Harrison Ford

I was desperately unhappy with it [Blade Runner]. I was compelled by contract to record five or six different versions of the narration, each of which was found wanting on a storytelling basis. The final version was something that I was completely unhappy with. The movie obviously has a very strong following, but it could have been more than a cult picture. — Harrison Ford

I think 'Indiana Jones' was a lot of fun to do because of the places we went to and the adventures and the action. But Han Solo was also a huge part of my life. — Harrison Ford

Parenting is an impossible job at any age. — Harrison Ford

I thought it was funny. I always thought Star Wars and Indiana Jones were basically comedies. The humour came out of their relationships; it came out of the fact that we were basically types. — Harrison Ford

J. J. Abrams is a director that I've admired for a long time, from the very first scripts he wrote - including 'Regarding Henry,' which I was in. — Harrison Ford

I haven't purposefully set out to play heroes. I'm interested in playing the character who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. But he's really either just saving himself or acting in the service of something that's important to him. — Harrison Ford

I fly myself everywhere. I like all kinds of flying, including practical flying for search and rescue. And I also like to fly into the backcountry, usually the Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho. I go with a group of friends, and we set up camp for about five days and explore little dirt strips and canyons. — Harrison Ford

I think the best movies are made not from a point of view that depends on your personal history, whether it's the color of your skin, or the politics that you've had, or the place that you come from. — Harrison Ford

I'm like old shoes, I've never been hip. — Harrison Ford

There comes a point when you've exhausted your opportunities playing good guys. I've been around long enough, I think I'm entitled to explore a bit. But what I saw there was an opportunity to play a character different from what the audience's expectation was. A chance to take their crude experience of me - of my iconography, if you will - and turn it on its ear at an appropriate juncture in the film to be useful to the process of telling the story. — Harrison Ford

I found out that drama was a fascinating exercise as a way to get out of my self and into somebody else's head. — Harrison Ford

You always have to know what the ambition of the scene is, what the purpose of that scene is in the telling of the story overall, so that you're there to support the story. — Harrison Ford

I don't do stunts - I do running, jumping and falling down. After 25 years I know exactly what I'm doing. — Harrison Ford

We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance. — Harrison Ford

It's important not to base your ambition on anybody else's history, but to figure out how best to use your own particular personality and understanding of yourself to help tell other people's stories. — Harrison Ford

I saw what luck and success I had as an opportunity to twist it up and do something different, so I've always sought out different genres and different kinds of characters. — Harrison Ford

Los Angeles is where you have to be if you want to be an actor. You have no choice. You go there or New York. I flipped a coin about it. It came up New York, so I flipped again. When you're starting out to be an actor, who wants to go where it's cold and miserable and be poor there? — Harrison Ford

American Graffiti was the first movie where the director let me have any input. It was the first time anyone ever listened to me. George thought my character should have a crew cut, but I wasn't happy with that idea. I'd always had pretty long hair back then - in college, particularly - so I told George my character should wear a cowboy hat. George thought about it and he remembered a bunch of guys from Modesto, California, who cruised around, like my character, and wore cowboy hats, so it turned out that it actually fit the movie. — Harrison Ford

That's always my ambition is to create a character out of what will help tell the story. I've never been an actor to say my character wouldn't do that, because he should do that in order to help tell the story. — Harrison Ford

I am not the first man who wanted to make changes in his life at 60 and I won't be the last. It is just that others can do it with anonymity. — Harrison Ford

I have the ordinary experience of being anonymous when I'm in an airplane talking to air-traffic control, and they don't know who they're talking to. I have a lot of common experiences. — Harrison Ford

I don't want to be a movie star. I want to be in movies that are stars. — Harrison Ford

I could take Sean Connery in a fight ... I could definitely take him. — Harrison Ford

It doesn't matter to me whether I go back to outer space or not [while acting]. The job's the same and I don't have any sort of genre preferences. I'm looking for a good story and a good character, whether earthbound or not. — Harrison Ford

I am Irish as a person, but I feel Jewish as an actor. — Harrison Ford

I get mad when people call me an action movie star. Indiana Jones is an adventure film, a comic book, a fantasy. — Harrison Ford

I'm addicted to Altoids. I call them 'acting pills.' — Harrison Ford

Hard work and a proper frame of mind prepare you for the lucky breaks that come along
or don't. — Harrison Ford

In relationships with a directors, I want to be able to give and take, and I can't name what it is: respect, energy, investment in the task, focus, humor, intelligence, but I always feel responsible for taking the money. — Harrison Ford

Work hard and figure out how to be useful and don't try to imitate anybody else's success. Figure out how to do it for yourself with yourself. — Harrison Ford

I retire every time I'm done with a movie. Then I go back. You know, I enjoy sleep. But I love to work; it's fun for me. As long as it continues to be fun, and I'm tolerated by the people around me, I will do it. — Harrison Ford

I think of myself as an assistant storyteller. — Harrison Ford

I had the idea that the film would be much better served by a Branch Rickey look-a-like than a Harrison Ford look-a-like. I didn't want the audience to go into the film thinking that they knew me from some previous experience in the movies. — Harrison Ford

I rarely play a real person, because I don't think I'm a good imitator. — Harrison Ford

The best movies are made from a point of view of an understanding of human nature and an understanding of history and an understanding of what motivates people, of what makes a good movie from an emotional place. — Harrison Ford

With the CGI, suddenly there's a thousand enemies instead of six - the army goes off into the horizon. You don't need that. The audience loses its relationship with the threat on the screen. That's something that's consistently happening and it makes these movies like video games and that's a soulless enterprise. It's all kinetics without emotion. — Harrison Ford

It's very little trouble for me to accommodate my fans, unless I'm actually taking a pee at the time. — Harrison Ford

There's a real simple analogy. You have to perceive it from the ground up. You have to lay a firm foundation, then every step becomes part of a logical process. — Harrison Ford

My older kids are fantastic people. It can't be the result of my influence on them. — Harrison Ford

The original 'Star Wars' that I was a part of really was the beginning of my working life. — Harrison Ford

What is news? It's hard to quantify. Certainly news has changed completely, and the morning shows are not really designed to bring you the news, except to tell you what happened overnight, and the rest of it is a kind of magazine mentality - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's harder to be an educated and informed citizen. — Harrison Ford

The capacity to create [visual] effects in the computer has made the job easier, but it has also introduced the complexity that you can with a few more keystrokes generate such a busy canvas that the eye doesn't know where to go. You lose human scale on an event and you're just wowed by the kinetics and the visualization. But, often in those cases I feel you lose touch with the human characters and what it is that they would feel and how they might feel, and that's still the most important part. — Harrison Ford

It's part of the job of the actor to torture the director. — Harrison Ford

I was never that much a focus of interest in my career. I'm aware of that now, which doesn't give me a lot of pleasure. — Harrison Ford

We're all interconnected. For example, a simple lack of fresh water can lead to population dislocation, which can lead to political radicalization, which can lead to great pressure on the states that receive refugees because of a migrating population. — Harrison Ford

I wanted to be a forest ranger or a coal man. At a very early age, I knew I didn't want to do what my dad did, which was work in an office. — Harrison Ford

I just like the process of taking something written on a sheet of paper and giving it life and shape. I like the collaborative process of filmmaking, which is all simply to say that I love my work and I would continue to look for things that have the potential to be engaging and successful. — Harrison Ford

'May the Force be with you' is charming but it's not important. What's important is that you become the Force - for yourself and perhaps for other people. — Harrison Ford

It took me a long time to figure out how to act, and how to conduct myself in the business so I could get what I felt I needed to support my potential and give them what they wanted. — Harrison Ford

I'm quite curious and excited about seeing a new script for 'Blade Runner.' If, in fact, the opportunity would exist to do another, if it's a good script, I would be very anxious to work with Ridley Scott again; he's a very talented and passionate filmmaker. And I think it would be very interesting to revisit the character. — Harrison Ford

Because the character is a fiction, he's a composite of other contributors to the science that brought this enzyme therapy through the process. We had the opportunity to make him up out of those things that helped tell the story. We wanted to create both ally and antagonist for John [in the Extraordinary measures]. — Harrison Ford

I believe that the racial injustice which existed such a short time ago probably would have persisted longer if the color barrier had not been broken in baseball. — Harrison Ford

I need a challenge. I need the intellectual stimulation. I'm a member of a community on each film, working in concert to try to bring an idea to life. It's a great job. — Harrison Ford

Starring in a science-fiction film doesn't mean you have to act science fiction. — Harrison Ford

There is no child left within me, none whatsoever. — Harrison Ford