Kevin Costner Quotes & Sayings

You have to try to dismiss the loudness of cynicism. It's certainly going to come. — Kevin Costner

You can be as you choose to be. It's an act of discipline sometimes, but it can be done. — Kevin Costner

My whole life has been instinctual for me. I wouldn't do well in the computer world. My children look at me for a question and then they quickly look away because they know that I'm not going to know how to make Super Mario or do anything. — Kevin Costner

I've never changed my approach to acting. I've always felt like I've gotten better. I think that all of us can get better. I feel like, in my acting, I'm better than I was three pictures ago. I think about it. I'm a slow study. It takes me a long time to grasp the material, in order to perform it. But when I come to the set, on the first day, I know the whole movie. That's why I have to start early. — Kevin Costner

I am a really writer-oriented actor. — Kevin Costner

I've had moments in my life where it was all out on the table. Everything I had. I'm okay with that, because I had a strong belief that what I was doing other people could believe in it, too, if I can get it just right. — Kevin Costner

When I do a Western, I often wonder what I would have really done in that situation. — Kevin Costner

You can spend your life trying to be popular, and that's a tricky business. You can just try to be true to yourself. — Kevin Costner

I like American history. — Kevin Costner

Broken people say awful things and do incredibly absurd things. — Kevin Costner

If you don't understand your limitations you won't achieve much in your life. — Kevin Costner

In America, politicians do whatever to get re-elected, and a lot of decisions that were being made at that time by Kennedy were certain not to get him re-elected. — Kevin Costner

I haven't had a perfect life ... but I have had a perfectly good life! — Kevin Costner

I'm getting those familiar feelings, and I'm just going to enjoy the process of getting to know someone again. — Kevin Costner

You just do the things that you love and see if other people can like them too. — Kevin Costner

I think I just wanted to work when I finally came to Hollywood. That's what it was. I wanted to get a job, and then I wanted to get the second one. — Kevin Costner

I think there's true drama in the formation of everything that we know and are standing on the shoulders of. — Kevin Costner

I don't read as much as I'd like. I've been writing a lot. I've been doing a lot of music, but I don't read as much as I should. I just don't. — Kevin Costner

One person doesn't have to shoulder all the responsibility for why a film does or doesn't do well. — Kevin Costner

I think it's hard for people to suspend the era they live in and understand the decisions that had to be made often during the western [frontier era] were life and death. You had to be resourceful and on your feet to try to figure out somebody. You didn't have the benefit of knowing who somebody was. — Kevin Costner

I think if you want to make a good sports movie, you've got to cut down on the sports. You have to make it about people. You can't try to impress people with your knowledge and the X and O's and all the details and the technicalities. — Kevin Costner

I've always felt that failure was a completely underrated experience. — Kevin Costner

I'd like to put on buckskins and a ponytail and go underwater with a reed, hiding from the Indians ... To me, that's sexy! — Kevin Costner

I've always known that I'm a little out of vogue. — Kevin Costner

The movies helped define how I should be as a person. — Kevin Costner

I just tried to build on my failures. — Kevin Costner

I think religion is a funny thing because, when you see somebody who can really break it down, sometimes it feels foolish what you believe. — Kevin Costner

I have a tremendous belief in people, not that people don't let me down, not that I haven't maybe let some people down. But I have a tremendous belief in people and in the common experience. — Kevin Costner

I have instinctually thought I could do things in my life, and I followed that up by sometimes putting everything I have at risk - my money, my house - to make a movie. — Kevin Costner

It sounds vain, but I could probably make a difference for almost everyone I ever met if I chose to involve myself with them either professionally or personally. — Kevin Costner

I'm a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first casualty in life - people seem to give them up, quicker than anything, for a 'reality.' — Kevin Costner

I've been evolving in my stunt career Stunts have always had their place, and I have to measure them now. I've done things where, if I make a mistake, I could die. You really need to look at each thing. That usually is a mechanical failure. So, I have gone from doing everything, to listening and saying, "Maybe I shouldn't do this." — Kevin Costner

Sex and golf are the two things you can enjoy even if you're not good at them. — Kevin Costner

I've been able to do a lot of things in the movies. I've been able to run with the buffalo, you know. I've been able to pitch a perfect game in Yankee Stadium. I've been in the bathtub with Susan Sarandon. I've had a lot of chances to do a lot of things. I enjoy sports, but I enjoy sports so much to the point that I wouldn't do the movie unless I thought it had a chance to be good. — Kevin Costner

I stand up for what I believe. I don't know if it's always paid off for me, because I've been ridiculed and humiliated.
— Kevin Costner

You're this rat in the American maze, working your way towards the cheese, which is a job. — Kevin Costner

I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody, they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter, but I think you can recognise my films. — Kevin Costner

You have to pick the stories that you want to be involved with and the end game is you'd like to be a part of a hit. But I think your moral obligation is to follow your own heart. — Kevin Costner

If I had a choice of having a woman in my arms or shooting a bad guy on a horse, I'd take the horse. It's a lot more fun — Kevin Costner

Life's better when it's fun. Boy, that's deep, isn't it? — Kevin Costner

It's never bothered me to work hard. I've probably worked on some of the longest schedules in movie history. — Kevin Costner

I think that you try to raise the bar on whatever you do because you know, in this day of having to deal with a lot of reality TV, people say that scripted programming is dying, so you have to try to create something that can live in people's minds, long after they see it. — Kevin Costner

I actually play sports better when I'm mad. Some players don't play better when they're mad. They lose their sense of where they're at. I have a tendency to do better when I'm under pressure. — Kevin Costner

What are we blaming? Is this Vietnam? We made a movie, it didn't make much money. I'm gonna be really happy if somebody watches it in 10 years' time and really enjoys it. — Kevin Costner

If you think of 'Liberty Valance' or 'The Searchers,' there are moments in there that you'll never, ever forget ... And it does not matter what century you are from. — Kevin Costner

If it's going to be wrecked, I want to make sure I wreck it. — Kevin Costner

I didn't realize Toronto was so beautiful. Everywhere you go you see beautiful architecture. — Kevin Costner

I wanted very much to do Traffic and at one point it looked like I was going to work on it. And then, of course, Catherine Zeta-Jones had her relationship with Michael Douglas and it suddenly didn't happen. — Kevin Costner

There's a moment in time where kids really don't want to hear anything from their parents. — Kevin Costner

It was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him [Castro] and watch him relive an experience he lived as a very young man. — Kevin Costner

We all have to have our north star that we fix on and go to, but life is so much about the things that bump into you. — Kevin Costner

I don't give up. I'm a plodder. People come and go, but I stay the course. — Kevin Costner

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be. — Kevin Costner

I was always listening to my father more than anyone. I was always afraid of my father more than anyone. But there's a moment in time where other men in your life can have a huge impact. — Kevin Costner

When I played Robin Hood, I knew the great role was Alan Rickman's and it didn't bother me. I always think that leading actors should be called the best supporting actors. — Kevin Costner

It's such a cool thing in life to get what it is you want. Most of the time we don't, but occasionally we do. — Kevin Costner

If it's fifty years from now and it still has the same value, that's a movie. — Kevin Costner

True movies will never be measured by how much they make - they'll be measured by how they make you feel. — Kevin Costner

When I read Thirteen Days I was moved by it. It was just a great time for the world, in terms of looking back in history and seeing how we got ourselves into trouble and how we got ourselves out of trouble. — Kevin Costner

I wait and take on projects that I think can work. — Kevin Costner

I haven't lived a perfect life. I have regrets. But that's from a lifetime of taking chances, making decisions, and trying not to be frozen. The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them. — Kevin Costner

I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people. — Kevin Costner

I'm a pretty convenient foil for a lot of people. — Kevin Costner

I feel like I've been able to live a dream life, but my view of things is absolutely inside behavior about how I behave and how I count on other people behaving. — Kevin Costner

There's nothing more noble than a father and mother making an opportunity for their child, knowing that their life is gonna be hard. There's something incredibly heroic about that. — Kevin Costner

Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get. — Kevin Costner

I want to be a part of something, and when we define movies now based on how they do on the weekend. We live in a society of "thumbs up, thumbs down." — Kevin Costner

I dream of big things. I work for the small things. If you're going to dream, you might as well dream big. A lot of that came from my mother. She was adamant about the work ethic
about how you can't just dream things. — Kevin Costner

President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation, but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat. — Kevin Costner

I think these movies are as much for people of that time as for people who weren't born. For people who weren't born, they see how leaders must act under a crisis situation, not trying to be re-elected or not trying to check polls, that they go from their gut check. — Kevin Costner

I've always been distracted when somebody is coming after me and saying, "You're the only person who can play this part." — Kevin Costner

When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you. — Kevin Costner

I want to live forever, and I know I won't. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm only afraid of one thing: not being able to raise my kids. — Kevin Costner

I don't think I'd have been as good as Bruce was. He was a better JFK than I would have been. — Kevin Costner

I was in the show for 21 days once-the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains. — Kevin Costner

I know I have this level of celebrity, of fame, international, national, whatever you want to call it, but it's a pretty surreal thing to think sometimes that you're in the middle of another famous person's life and you think to yourself, 'How the hell did I get famous? What is this some weird club that we're in?' — Kevin Costner

I don't have a seller's remorse about how I've lived. — Kevin Costner

I can't say I really see much difference between my son and daughters except that my girls will occasionally make me a sandwich and my son won't. — Kevin Costner

Sometimes it takes a partner to say, "What is it you want?" because I think we operate in life and sometimes we don't know. We're all in some kind of maze going after the cheese at the end, and we get it and we go, "What is it that we want?" — Kevin Costner

Great stories don't often make great movies. Its' a crafted art form. — Kevin Costner

Here's the thing - the accent is cool. It's like a girl with big breasts - they get your attention first. — Kevin Costner

You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted. — Kevin Costner

I always thought the leading actor should be the best supporting actor, because you're the only person that can help every other actor on the set. — Kevin Costner

There's actually a big difference between story and character. A great story doesn't make a great movie. A great script, which defines its moments and characters can become a great movie. You can make a movie that makes a lot of money and it may or may not have great story or great characters. — Kevin Costner

Audiences trust Westerns when you hit the right tone. I think they're not in vogue, but they will always be in vogue when you hit the right note. — Kevin Costner

I'm a coach's coaching player. I like to be on the floor. So, if the coach tells me what to do out on the floor, I can get it done. I'm really comfortable being directed. — Kevin Costner

Money isn't a major motivating force in my life. Nor is my profession. There are other things that I care more about than being an actor. — Kevin Costner

I was sucked into this vortex of a very conservative upbringing. — Kevin Costner

What is it you want? That's a question that we all get posed sometimes internally and sometimes externally. — Kevin Costner

If you want to make a great sports movie, don't put too much sports in it. It's the backdrop. It's the environment. — Kevin Costner

The kind of love that these young men have and the respect that they have for their fathers, I don't see that as much in America as you see in the Latino community, and it's really something to behold. — Kevin Costner

I'm only interested in being a good actor and in being remembered for my best films, not for the way I look. But it seems inevitable in this line of work that I have to care about the way I look without getting obsessed about it. — Kevin Costner

I think one of the first things to go as people's lives start to go down is their dreams. Dreams should be the last thing to go - dreams are the things you go down with. If you're left clinging to a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean, I'd put on it the word dreams. — Kevin Costner

I haven't tried to buffer myself. I like rolling the dice. — Kevin Costner

We really don't rest if we think our kids are drifting, or if we think they don't have the right work ethic. It drives us crazy. Because we ultimately want them to succeed and, until they do, we feel in some way that something is not complete. — Kevin Costner

We're at a point in history where everyone needs to pay attention to politics. Too much is at stake for us to be apathetic. — Kevin Costner

If developing ties to this world and exercising love and compassion are not the very point of us
I cannot presume to know
then we are at least better occupied in this way, I feel, than with the riddles of other worlds, which only prove impossible for us to solve and unhealthy even to ponder. — Kevin Costner

A good idea is something like an emotion, you just can't keep it in. — Kevin Costner

Failure doesn't kill you ... it increases your desire to make something happen. — Kevin Costner

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched. — Kevin Costner