Richard Gere Quotes & Sayings

I'm a 50 year-old guy and I'm not in shape like I was when I was 30. — Richard Gere

Things come out of nowhere, and you start evaluating the director, the cast, and all those other things going into it. — Richard Gere

Always walk towards open doors. And if they slam shut in your face, kick that sucker in and keep going. — Richard Gere

In a situation like this, of course you identify with everyone who's suffering. (But we must also think about) the terrorists who are creating such horrible future lives for themselves because of the negativity of this karma. It's all of our jobs to keep our minds as expansive as possible. If you can see (the terrorists) as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better. — Richard Gere

My life is pretty simple and normal. — Richard Gere

I don't know any of us who are in relationships that are totally honest - it doesn't exist. — Richard Gere

I have made plenty of mistakes. The key to life is to learn from them. I have been a little too introspective, but I think that stemmed from insecurity or shyness. I took a long time to grow up. — Richard Gere

I've stayed good friends with most of my girlfriends. — Richard Gere

When I started acting, it was really the way for me to be able to communicate. — Richard Gere

I meditate. Daily practice is essential to my life. — Richard Gere

I've always said it's flattering to be desired, just as it's flattering that people accept the reality of the character you play. But it was always ridiculous to assume that because I could play a gigolo on screen I'd play anything like that role off screen. — Richard Gere

A lot of making a movie is the comfort level of the people. It's just feeling open. We need to get along. We have to know something about each other. — Richard Gere

If you have a built-in level of respect and trust and openness to essentially be yourself, it allows for a deeper uncensored communication [with your partner]. — Richard Gere

I'd bought a lot of really challenging, cutting-edge Joel-Peter Witkin photographs very early on. There were severed heads and amputated feet and hands in them - gruesome stuff. I had them all around the house, and if someone couldn't relate to it in some artistic way and instead just said "Yuck," then there probably wouldn't have been anywhere for us to go. — Richard Gere

In the process of developing a character, you do, in fact, start to take him on as a personality. — Richard Gere

Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world. — Richard Gere

Sometimes I'm kind of spacey. I'm like Ferdinand the bull, sniffing the daisy, not aware of time, of what's going on in the real world. — Richard Gere

When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things. — Richard Gere

It's not enough to say that the Olympics is an athletic contest outside of politics, because it's not. The Chinese clearly are using the Olympics to recreate how they are viewed in the world and how they view themselves. — Richard Gere

If you have any question in your mind, don't do it. If you go in thinking it's going to fix something that's wrong, don't do it. — Richard Gere

There's really one character for every actor. The voyage is to find that one character. — Richard Gere

In saving Tibet, you save the possibility that we are all brothers, sisters. — Richard Gere

The idea that you're completing someone else in a marriage to me is death. That to me is a false start and most of us are usually taught that ... you've got to stand on your own. Then you can build something extraordinary. — Richard Gere

Billions of people don't practice a religion at all. — Richard Gere

When you get up in the morning, set your motivations. — Richard Gere

I tend to be a bit of a dreamer. — Richard Gere

Shooting in New York can be a problem. I had to walk through a crowd, come in the front door, and play the scene. — Richard Gere

Mindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not. — Richard Gere

From a Buddhist point of view, emotions are not real. As an actor, I manufacture emotions. They're a sense of play. But real life is the same. We're just not aware of it. — Richard Gere

The idea of fixing of healing is an important part of any genuine spiritual approach. Kabbalah is very much about this idea of fixing of things that have been damaged. From a Buddhist point of view, things have been damaged because ignorance has intoxicated the mind. — Richard Gere

Well I think on a simple ecological level that the diversity of this planet is important for our survival, that all of our different cultures, people are important to the health of the whole the same way that a species of animal should be saved and at a simple ecology level. — Richard Gere

If the work is going well and it's something that has value with some meaning to it, it gives back a lot. — Richard Gere

I just had a device made that fits in your mouth and juts your jaw out like you have an underbite. It locks in that position to keep your throat passage open when you sleep. This is the sacrifice I make for my wife. It was either this device or me sleeping in the other room. — Richard Gere

I can see the character in a photograph, in the way a guy stands or holds his hands, the way he buckles his belt. I fantasize a lot looking at photographs. I'm sure that doesn't work for many people. — Richard Gere

All of our energy should be in sacrifice and services. Suffering, at least. — Richard Gere

Certainly there have been better actors than me who have had no careers. Why? I don't know. — Richard Gere

Sometimes it's an external approach where one can learn the skills required, let's say, learn to play the trumpet and in that process other things happen. It's magical: through the process of practicing four hours a day you start focusing on emotion and when you pick up the trumpet it's filled with feeling. — Richard Gere

I do my work as an actor, but another part of my work goes to the piece as a whole. I can be fairly detached looking at my work and be brutal on myself. — Richard Gere

Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality. — Richard Gere

Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques. — Richard Gere

In a way, one gets stability from being able to order the rational mind. — Richard Gere

When someone has a strong intuitive connection, Buddhism suggests that it's because of karma, some past connection. — Richard Gere

There are times when telling lies are not a bad thing. It can be a compassionate thing. But to make it benign, you have to be aware of your compassionate reasons for telling that lie. — Richard Gere

Anything that's expanding the mind and heart is happiness. But it's not a goal. — Richard Gere

I've lived in New York when I've had nothing, and I've lived in New York when I had money, and New York changes radically depending on how much money you have. It's the texture of life. — Richard Gere

As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love, and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness. — Richard Gere

I'm rarely in a situation where, if you have a good idea, it's not embraced. That's stupid. And I don't work with stupid people. — Richard Gere

I don't regret anything. Everything happens for a reason-it's part of the healing process. Life is a healing process. — Richard Gere

The reality is, we can change. We can change ourselves. We can change our minds. We can change our hearts ... and therefore the Universe changes. — Richard Gere

There are some problems on this planet that seem to be intractable. — Richard Gere

Everyone responds to kindness. — Richard Gere

We've had too many World AIDS Days. — Richard Gere

To read your own mind is to look at your self and read your soul. Hatred becomes love and that is the path I am working on — Richard Gere

I've had an interesting life. — Richard Gere

I find that you can use an acting technique when the thing isn't working, not that you make the technique the end result of your work. You use the technique when you're in trouble and things aren't flowing the way they should. It's a way of fooling yourself to make it work again. — Richard Gere

I have no sense of time, and I'm a dreamer. — Richard Gere

I meet human beings who are flawed, who are mentally ill and have enormous problems, but I don't think I've ever met someone who was a totally dark energy that had no humanity or sense of love or affection for anything in their life. That's very rare. — Richard Gere

I haven't worked with people who are jealous or competitive. That's a particularly deadly attitude to have when you're working on a film. — Richard Gere

I've always maintained that all characters and all personalities are in all of us. The whole thing is available. You're not this or that, no one is. — Richard Gere

I think movies probably are a mirror in some way so we can see ourselves in them. — Richard Gere

My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy. — Richard Gere

Food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes. — Richard Gere

People get offended by animal rights campaigns. It's ludicrous. It's not as bad as mass animal death in a factory. — Richard Gere

I honestly do not think about celebrity or image or sexual expectations on me. It only comes up when people have a list of questions. But what I am told is that there is a quality that I have onscreen, where it's a little bit of everything. — Richard Gere

I always remember what Bob Dylan said in that [Martin] Scorsese documentary on him. When he was asked about Joan Baez's complaints about the way he treated her when they were together, Dylan laughed and said, "It's impossible to be in love and wise at the same time." — Richard Gere

You've all heard some rumors about me over the years. I guess this is the moment to do it. My name is Richard Gere and I am a l*sbian. — Richard Gere

People are expecting me to be a certain way all the time. It's not like if I come in here with a totally different personality and right before the camera starts they see this new character. It confuses everything. Life has a consensus reality to it and if you use that to your advantage it makes it much easier. — Richard Gere

I can't remember that I was ever looking for anything. I was waiting for something to touch me. It's like, I'll be open to it, and see if it moves me. There has to be a "falling in love" moment. — Richard Gere

Tibetan Buddhism had an enormous impact on me. — Richard Gere

There is a way of looking at an awful place from a certain angle that allows it to take on a beauty because it is what it is. — Richard Gere

I would rather be loved than have money and all that other stuff. — Richard Gere

It's human nature - we want to believe our children, our families, our President! — Richard Gere

I have to admit, a manicured look works for me. — Richard Gere

Any political situation has many sides. We intellectualize the whole situation any way. We make our intellectual decisions based on our cultural background and how we live. — Richard Gere

I don't think that bravery is about skin. Bravery is about a willingness to show emotional need. — Richard Gere

I think life is self-examination. Certainly the voyage that one takes. — Richard Gere

It's rare that a good writer will sit down and write a good script. Writers are greedy too, and they don't want to work without getting paid. But quality will find its way out. — Richard Gere

One of the joys of being an actor is that you're always learning new things. And I've been doing this since I was 19, so there's been a lot of new things I have learned for each part. I always assume that I can do it. — Richard Gere

I'm voting for Gore because the other is unthinkable. Which most of us will probably do. I hope all of us. I've always liked Ralph Nader and would like to see a real third party, but the thought of George Bush as president is unthinkable. — Richard Gere

People don't understand what happiness is, so they have an idea of what will make them happy, but it never does. — Richard Gere

Julia [Roberts]. She's got two kids and animals, and I think she's a night nibbler. There'd be crumbs everywhere. — Richard Gere

Even in comedies, you've got to feel safe for things to just happen in a way that is natural and free, and recognizable as human. — Richard Gere

Western Buddhists in many ways are much serious Buddhists than Tibetans are. — Richard Gere

Relationships are like sharks. They've got to keep going into deeper, colder water, sometimes scarier, darker territories ... to stay alive. — Richard Gere

Arabs are a burden on the world and should be annihilated. — Richard Gere

If the United States marches into Iraq without the backing of the United Nations, that will be done entirely without the backing of the American people. — Richard Gere

Sharon Stone. She is one of the most dedicated people I know, but also highly unedited. — Richard Gere

I'm not that tough; I'm not that smart. I need life telling me who I am, showing me my mind constantly. I wouldn't see it in a cave. — Richard Gere

When His Holiness won the Nobel Peace Prize, there was a quantum leap. He is not seen as solely a Tibetan anymore; he belongs to the world. — Richard Gere

I think that as human beings we tend to compartmentalize, and we have a selective morality based on the situation we're in. — Richard Gere

On a movie set that works, you have your father figure, the director, you have your siblings, your other actors. — Richard Gere

I have a lot of beautiful friends. — Richard Gere

I'm younger than I once was. Internally. Less self-conscious. Less insecure. — Richard Gere

What we all have in common is an appreciation of kindness and compassion; all the religions have this. We all lean towards love. — Richard Gere

It was important for me to have a partner who was ballsy. — Richard Gere

It's nice to have money, but the first thing I did with money was buy my father a snow-blower, because my job was to shovel snow, and I wasn't there to do it any more, so I was able to buy him a blower. — Richard Gere

I had a friend in the neighborhood whose father had Playboy magazines, and we would go over and look at them. I remember cutting out pictures and hiding them in my room. — Richard Gere

There is nothing real about film. Nothing. Even the light particles that project the film can't be proven to exist. Nothing is there. — Richard Gere

I've got a lot of opportunities, a lot of love in my life, a lot of things going for me. Still, it's not complete. I know this is not the whole thing. There's much more. — Richard Gere

The Dalai Lama said that he thinks mother's love is the best symbol for love and compassion, because it is totally disinterested. — Richard Gere