Michael J. Fox Quotes & Sayings

I find as long as I acknowledge the truth of something, then that's it. I know what it is and then I can operate. But if I overestimate the downside of something or the challenge of something and I get too obsessed about the difficulty of it, then I don't leave enough room to be open to the upside, the possibility. — Michael J. Fox

I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best. — Michael J. Fox

When prescribing one of the drugs I take, my doctor warned me of a common side effect: exaggerated, intensely vivid dreams. To be honest, I've never really noticed the difference. I've always dreamt big. — Michael J. Fox

No matter how much money you have, you can lose it. — Michael J. Fox

Every failure I have considered my own, but every success has been shared. — Michael J. Fox

If you want to be an agent of change, it starts with you and what you're made of. — Michael J. Fox

The moment I understood this - that my Parkinson's was the one thing I wasn't going to change - I started looking at the things I could change, like the way research is funded. — Michael J. Fox

No matter how much fame you have, it's not something that belongs to you. If I'm famous, that doesn't belong to me-that belongs to you. If you can't remember who I am, I'm no longer famous. — Michael J. Fox

In fact, Parkinson's has made me a better person. A better husband, father and overall human being. — Michael J. Fox

Pity is a benign form of abuse. — Michael J. Fox

I saw, during the midterm campaign of 2006, how difficult it was for opponents of stem cell research to run against hope. And so it was in the 2008 presidential contest. This was hope in the collective, a definition that should always apply to the expression of a people's political will. Christopher Reeve had believed in a formula: optimism + information = hope. In this case, the informing agent was us. Granted, it may all look different in six months to a year, but it is hard not to be buoyed by the desire for positive change as articulated and advanced by Barack Obama. It is okay to hope. This time the aspiration of many will not be derided as desperation by a few, as it was during the stem cell debate of '06.
By the time you read this book, President Obama and the 111th Congress will have established federal funding for stem cell research. The dam has broken.
Just as I'd hoped. — Michael J. Fox

I urge you to be challenged and inspired by what you do not know. — Michael J. Fox

A lot of times, when you have a disability, one of the things you deal with is other people's projections of what your experience is and their fear about it, and not seeing the experience you're having. There's nothing horrifying about [Parkinson's disease] to me. It is what I deal with. It is my reality and my life, but it's not horrible. — Michael J. Fox

If you were to rush into this room right now and announce that you had struck a deal - with God, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Bill Gates, whomever - in which the ten years since my diagnosis could be magically taken away, traded in for ten more years as the person I was before - I would, without a moment's hesitation, tell you to take a hike. — Michael J. Fox

What other people think of me is not my business. — Michael J. Fox

Just as Parkinson's isn't a big topic of conversation in my house, neither is my career. — Michael J. Fox

I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn't nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked. — Michael J. Fox

If I don't get food in my mouth, I'm still happy. If my pants are round my ankles, as long as I don't get arrested for indecent exposure, I'm happy. I'm worried about keeping my hair, not how it's combed. — Michael J. Fox

The way life runs through everything, even the tiniest elements of nature - that makes me humble. It's the same humility that causes people at a certain time every day to get on their knees and put their foreheads on the ground in honor of something or someone. — Michael J. Fox

Among other things, don't start with the beer. — Michael J. Fox

I don't feel a yearning or a sense of missed opportunities. I don't have many regrets. So that's a nice feeling. To have no regrets and still have enough sense of adventure to take on risk. — Michael J. Fox

Always be available to your kids. Because if you say, 'Give me five minutes, give me ten minutes,' it'll be 15, it'll be 20. And then when you get there, the shine will have worn off whatever it is they wanted to share with you. — Michael J. Fox

I still play hockey every now and then, and I still golf. But my biggest exercise is walking my big dog in the park every day. — Michael J. Fox

If you don't take the time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? — Michael J. Fox

I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like. — Michael J. Fox

Life is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be
right up until the moment when everything explodes into a fireball of tiny, unrecognizable fragments, or it all goes skidding sideways, through the guardrail, over the embankment, and down the mountain. This will happen (and probably more than once). — Michael J. Fox

Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone's watching or not. — Michael J. Fox

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it. — Michael J. Fox

People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand. — Michael J. Fox

Life delivered me a catastrophe, but I found a richness of soul. — Michael J. Fox

I can't always control my body the way I want to, and I can't control when I feel good or when I don't. I can control how clear my mind is. And I can control how willing I am to step up if somebody needs me. — Michael J. Fox

I don't keep up with it all. But Taylor Swift writes songs about everybody she goes out with, right? What a way to build a career. — Michael J. Fox

I'm kind of private and I keep things inside a lot, but it's been so wonderful to realize that people care about you in a very deep way and that there is some bond between an actor and his audience. I don't even know how to describe that feeling. — Michael J. Fox

I can get sad, I can get frustrated, I can get scared, but I never get depressed - because there's joy in my life. — Michael J. Fox

[My son] will have a fairly stable future. Not one where the schoolyard talk is whose father grossed $8 million on his last picture. — Michael J. Fox

If one of my kids reads a book for school and I can have a conversation with her about the book and I sense that she gets what the book is about, then it doesn't really matter to me if she gets an A on the paper. — Michael J. Fox

I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm an activist, I'm a writer and I'm just a student of the world. — Michael J. Fox

The first part of my life was to be an actor and maybe have some success at that. Then [it was time] to find somebody to be in a relationship with and have a life that way. Because of Parkinson's, I had to change: How can I be of service here? Is there something unique to my situation that I can use to help people? I did not have the wherewithal to invent that. It just happened in front of me and had me join in. — Michael J. Fox

Lance Armstrong showed up, and I started talking to him; I saw all these people with cancer who followed him to Paris for the Tour de France, and I saw the difference he was making in their lives. That put it together for me ... having it be not so much about me, but [my being] a vehicle for it. — Michael J. Fox

It never occurred to me that any of these pleasures were a reward for being a pretty good kid, any more than I needed to restructure my life just to avoid an eternity of being spit-roasted on a subterranean barbecue. If this sounds flip, smug, or disrespectful, it's not meant to be. Obviously, there is great wisdom, beauty, and relevance in millennia worth of collected theological teaching from around the world. The question I'm grappling with is: why didn't these big themes and major stick-and-carrot extremes resonate with me? I just never bought into the concept. Maybe I'm part of a small minority, but I don't think so. — Michael J. Fox

I don't have a set of tenets, but I live an ethical life. I practice a humility that presupposes there's a power greater than myself. And I always believe, don't inflict harm where it's not necessary. — Michael J. Fox

The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am. — Michael J. Fox

As with any turning point or instance when a new road is chosen and an old one forsaken, there are consequences. — Michael J. Fox

It is one of the great ironies of my life that only when it became virtually impossible for me to keep my body from moving would I find the peace, security, and spiritual strength to stand in one place. I couldn't be still until I could - literally - no longer keep still. — Michael J. Fox

I see possibilities in everything. For everything that's taken away, something of greater value has been given. — Michael J. Fox

I've dropped my pebble in the ocean, and hopefully; throughout the course of the day; millions of others will drop theirs in too. No single one of us knows which pebble causes the wave to crest, but each of us, quite rightly, believes that it might be ours; an act of faith. — Michael J. Fox

The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky ... I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned. — Michael J. Fox

I don't want people to kick my ass, I just want to get to a point where they can't kick it. — Michael J. Fox

Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to becomes master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. — Michael J. Fox

It is ironic that in the same year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, some would have us ban certain forms of DNA medical research. Restricting medical research has very real human consequences, measured in loss of life and tremendous suffering for patients and their families. — Michael J. Fox

Being in control of your own destiny is a myth - and wouldn't be half as much fun anyway. Pay attention to what's happening around you. Read the book before you see the movie. Remember, though you, alone, are responsible for your own happiness, it's still okay to feel responsible for someone else's. — Michael J. Fox

Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in 'A Few Good Men', I CAN handle the truth. — Michael J. Fox

In terms of what happened over that hiatus that I took, I just rested. I spent that time with my family, during their really formative years, and enjoyed that, and I messed with pills and new medications that help me to deal with dyskinesia and some other things I was struggling with, that I don't have as much now because of medication to counter the side effects. So, it just seemed like the right time to do it. — Michael J. Fox

This is why the license plates say Beautiful British Columbia, and I realized just how much I would miss it. But all this natural beauty exists only in response to rain, I reminded myself, and the occasional day of technicolor spectacle was bought and paid for with weeks and weeks of dull, damp gray. I wasn't going to miss the gray. If — Michael J. Fox

Some of the best friends you'll ever meet in your life, you'll meet though your children
mothers and fathers of their friends, parents from school. You'll see. That's the way it was for Bill and me. It's one of the many gifts of parenting. — Michael J. Fox

[Constant curiousity leads to happiness:] I wake up curious every day and every day I'm surprised by something. And if I can just recognize that surprise every day and say, 'Oh, that's a new thing, that's a new gift that I got today that I didn't even know about yesterday,' it keeps me going. It keeps me more than going. It keeps me enthusiastic and grateful! — Michael J. Fox

The only way for government to express the needs and desires of Americans is if Americans speak up and get involved. — Michael J. Fox

I'm sure there are many other Forrest Gump moments that I'm forgetting. I don't mention them as boasts, but rather as evidence of how ridiculously lucky I have been to have lived the life that I have. — Michael J. Fox

You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake. — Michael J. Fox

That's the way I look at things - if you focus on the worst case scenario and it happens, you've lived it twice. It sounds like Pollyanna-ish tripe but I'm telling you - it works for me. — Michael J. Fox

My experience is to deal with things through humor. — Michael J. Fox

As much as Parkinson's is about movement, the end stage is being frozen. So the more I let that happen, the more I'm gonna be stuck within that and unable to reverse it. — Michael J. Fox

I think there's a god and I know it's not me. — Michael J. Fox

When I started it [non for profit], I thought, I'm not smart enough to do this. I had no experience in management, no experience in administration, no experience in nonprofit; but then this phrase came into my head: I only have to be smart enough to find people who are smarter than me; I only have to be smart enough to recognize who knows more than me. — Michael J. Fox

I've learned some exciting things - mostly, that people really want to help each other; and that, if you can lay out a vision for them - and that vision is sincere and genuine - they'll get interested. — Michael J. Fox

When I was 20, I would have taken a bullet in the head to never have to be 35. — Michael J. Fox

Don't spend a lot of time imagining the worst-case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will, and if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice. — Michael J. Fox

It's all about control. Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. Parkinson's is a perfect metaphor for lack of control. Every unwanted movement in my hand or arm, every twitch that I cannot anticipate or arrest, is a reminder that even in the domain of my own being, I am not calling the shots. I tried to exert control by drinking myself to a place of indifference, which just exacerbated the sense of miserable hopelessness. — Michael J. Fox

The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It's got five or six people, new show every night, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot. — Michael J. Fox

I wouldn't have minded living in Provence for a month or however long it took for me to learn to say, 'I've been attacked by a wild boar. Help me find my spleen! — Michael J. Fox

Whatever the situation, just take it for what it is. You don't have to make it worse or better than it is. It just is what it is. Always deal with the honesty, the truth of what something is, and then you've got all kinds of choices. — Michael J. Fox

If you fixate on the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you've lived it twice. — Michael J. Fox

My wife is Jewish, and therefore, it's my children's birthright to be Jewish. — Michael J. Fox

Now I feel and I say all the time that vanity is, like, long gone. I'm really free of worrying about what I look like, because it's out of my shaky hands. I don't control it. So why would I waste one second of my life worrying about it? — Michael J. Fox

By the time I entered high school, I had forsaken academics altogether in favor of my burgeoning acting career. — Michael J. Fox

I don't set a whole lot of goals. It smacks a little bit of will to me, and I find that will is not the way to go for me. — Michael J. Fox

My notion of spirituality was different than it is now, but even if I'd been the most fundamentalist of believers, I would have assumed that God had better things to do than arbitrarily smite me with shaking palsy. — Michael J. Fox

I was eccentric, even as a kid. I was an early reader, an early talker. I was very curious in a way that maybe the other kids weren't. I was a little more outgoing. — Michael J. Fox

I don't think [Parkinson's] is Gothic nastiness. There's nothing on the surface that's horrible about someone with a shaky hand. There's nothing horrible about someone in their life saying, "God, I'm really tired of this shaky hand thing" and me saying, "Me, too." That's our reality. We have no control over it. — Michael J. Fox

When something enters your life that is so big and so non-negotiable as catastrophic illness, you either go in denial for a while or ultimately you accept it and you make space for it. And in making space for it, you illuminate a lot of things that you normally don't have room for you simply just look at the world differently. — Michael J. Fox

So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy's big challenge is not having a Parkinson's patient for a husband. It's having me for a husband. I happen to be a Parkinson's patient. — Michael J. Fox

My age makes me think how valuable life is. How bad is something like Parkinson's in relation to not having life at all? — Michael J. Fox

I think we all get our own bag of hammers. We all get our own Parkinson's. We all have our own thing. I think that we'll look at it through the filter of that experience, and we'll say, "Yeah, I need to laugh at my stuff, too." — Michael J. Fox

I have a remarkably normal life. — Michael J. Fox

Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all. — Michael J. Fox

The 'Rescue Me' gig was a unique opportunity to play a character - a misanthropic, angry guy - who was so contrary to how people think of me. — Michael J. Fox

I don't subscribe to any particular doctrine or ideology. I just think that there's kind of a good and bad, the good being life in its purest, happiest form, and the other being the darker side of existence. — Michael J. Fox

Family is not an important thing, it's everything. — Michael J. Fox

If Spirituality is that you're humble in the face of forces greater than you and you believe those forces are more inclined toward being good than being bad, then I'm a spiritual person. — Michael J. Fox

I definitely believe in a higher power. — Michael J. Fox

Our challenges don't define us, our actions do, — Michael J. Fox

I owned a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Mercedes 560SL convertible, a Jeep Cherokee and a Nissan 300ZX. I can't remember the intricate decision tree I had to climb in order to determine which one to drive to work on any given day - it probably had something to do with the weather, or which car had more gas in the tank, or upholstery that best matched whatever shirt I happened to throw on that morning. — Michael J. Fox

Recovering alcoholics have an expression: "If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today." With all that's happened, it's been liberating to understand that I don't have to carry the weight of all my disappointments or expectations. Sometimes it just is what it is. I can accept that. — Michael J. Fox

The way I look at life, and the way I look at the reality of Parkinson's, is that sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's funny. I need to look at it that way, and I think other people will look at it that way. — Michael J. Fox

If you asked my kids to describe me, they'd go through a whole list of words before even thinking about Parkinson's. And honestly, I don't think about it that much either. I talk about it because it's there, but it's not my totality. — Michael J. Fox

Almost instantly [after my announcement of Parkinson's], I saw the first couple of days the coverage was about, you know, "Fox's Parkinson's, blah, blah, blah." Then, two days after that, I saw the coverage turn. It started to become, "Can young people get Parkinson's?" All of a sudden, the conversation turned to become about that. And that was one of the first eye-opening things. — Michael J. Fox

So I never spend a lot of time analyzing why people respond to my work. But I think that it's just the joy, a passion for life, that I think has always been in my characters. Beyond that, I'm just grateful for it. — Michael J. Fox

The story is a testament to the consolations that get me through and give meaning to every area of my life — Michael J. Fox

Since I'm not sure of the address to which to send my gratitude, I put it out there in everything I do. — Michael J. Fox

And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance ...
... One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father. — Michael J. Fox