Kilmer Quotes & Sayings

If you play Mark Twain and he's not funny, you are definitely not playing Mark Twain. That was the biggest challenge, in some ways. Writing and performing jokes that can come out of that brilliant delivery system he constructed: the friendly, avuncular truth-teller. — Val Kilmer

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances. — Val Kilmer

Once is more than generous for any lifetime. — Val Kilmer

But there's something flirty/sexy about his voice that's appealing to my inner romantic comedy actress.
Then again, maybe it's just his penthouse apartment I'm hearing. My inner gold digger frequently beats the crap out of my inner Meg Ryan. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I was looking for projects, as you always are, and I read this scene ... and I'm in the Hollywood Hills. So I thought, 'This is interesting.' You have this setup that seems to be based in some reality and you can only wonder where Black's going to go with this. — Val Kilmer

I liked being Doc Holliday. It's fun to be insightful and aristocratic, to stand up for your friend and make sacrifices for him. It was fun to be arrogant like he was and have the goods to back it up. He was a very noble character. Although, let's not forget, he did kill a lot of people. — Val Kilmer

I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered. — Val Kilmer

I don't believe in death. I think it's just a state of mind. — Val Kilmer

It's a really weird thing, modern divorce. I found out I was getting divorced on television. That was kind of weird. — Val Kilmer

I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I've played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters. — Val Kilmer

Acting is not a science. Anybody who believes that their success exists in relation to their goals is deluding themselves; unless you think of a career in terms of financial goals. I have nothing against Tom Cruise, but he must have a large capacity to deal with the business side of movies. — Val Kilmer

The only reason a road is good as every wanderer knows / Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which one goes — Joyce Kilmer

My parents always encouraged me to do creative stuff, to do weird stuff. — Jack Kilmer

Arthur Ward would be the guy trying to reason with a zombie as it bit into the flesh of his arm. — Michelle Kilmer

Well I sure had been looking for a comedy for years without any success. — Val Kilmer

Both of the twins exhibited a sort of prized Wisconsin Aryan-ness that excused them from blame for almost any caper. they looked liked the protagonists from a Disney movie but behaved like After School Specials. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

The Secret Service is a strange group. They don't really have a leader. It's not set up like a military. Each one is supposed to be able to act like a leader when something comes up. — Val Kilmer

I would probably do anything with David Mamet. He's so great. I just love his writing. — Val Kilmer

I've never been that comfortable talking about myself or about acting. — Val Kilmer

I have never taken my career seriously. My only ambition was to grow as an actor. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain is a voice of truth and a voice of equality and a voice of tolerance. Which means he is a voice of love. — Val Kilmer

I'm very wary of news on television. — Val Kilmer

I think death is just a transition to another state of consciousness. — Val Kilmer

The good reviews that people have told me about through the years haven't really helped me do my job. So it's kind of like, if your hair turns out right you want to go out, you don't just want to stay in and look in the mirror. That's kind of what reading a review is like to me; it's like reveling in something that's just one night. — Val Kilmer

We take what's shown on television as the truth, and it isn't. News isn't even the truth on television. If you look up the definition of what news is, it isn't that what we're watching on the new - it's entertainment. — Val Kilmer

When it was announced that Michael Keaton was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When they announced that Val Kilmer was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When it was announced that George Clooney was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When it was announced that Christian Bale was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. And everyone was mad about Ben Affleck. So every single incarnation, people are going to be mad; you just can't do anything about it. — Baron Vaughn

If you're in a hit movie, it's good to be in another hit movie straight away. — Val Kilmer

I've always thought that one of the signs of true adulthood is when you realize that you spend each Christmas trying to relive childhood memories that never really happened in the first place. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Unless a Western's made money - doesn't matter who made the money, doesn't matter what the subject is - if the last one didn't make any money, you can't make another one for a four-year period. Westerns more than any genre. — Val Kilmer

More than anything I wish he were here with me. "A relationship is an accumulation of shared history," he'd said to me once. And here I was making history without him. It's lonely. And I can't wait to go home. Parts of me are showing through my Aqua, and I'm having a hard time keeping them separate. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

My only "business plan" was to get lucky. — Val Kilmer

I've always been really into movies, and I definitely thought I'd be involved with movies at some point. — Jack Kilmer

Hollywood is wonderful, but it does eat its young. — Val Kilmer

I met my wife, Jennifer, while sitting next to her on the airplane on the way to England. I was heading to Oxford as a Marshall scholar. — Derek Kilmer

Once you've crawled into what's commonly thought of as the sordid underbelly of life, you realize it's all just different versions of normal. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Do what you like to do so well that someone will pay you wages for it. — Val Kilmer

I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates when he said ... I drank what? — Val Kilmer

I'm a drag queen. I'm a celebrity trapped in a normal person's body. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet,
There is a new-made grave today,
Built by never a spade nor pick,
Yet covered with earth ten meteres thick.
There lie many fighting men.
Dead in their youthful prime. — Joyce Kilmer

I never cultivated a personality. Almost everyone who is really famous has cultivated a personality. — Val Kilmer

A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time. — Val Kilmer

Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me. I play these guys, but I'm not like them. I've been accused of bein. — Val Kilmer

With 'Palo Alto' as the catalyst, I've surrounded myself with people that have kind of created a world where I can feel like I'm not gonna be judged for doing something that I want to do. — Jack Kilmer

I have two children and they're young yet but all of the children that I know really inspire me. — Val Kilmer

For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food. — Joyce Kilmer

The fairy poet takes a sheet Of moonbeam, silver white; His ink is dew from daisies sweet, His pen a point of light. — Joyce Kilmer

Hollywood's like a warehouse. It's just a place that you go. What's interesting in the warehouse has to do with the creative people. — Val Kilmer

I had a lot of fun with Val Kilmer. He's like a big kid. — Derek Luke

I just don't think I've ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity. — Val Kilmer

I learned a long time ago that place matters to me, on many levels, and maybe more than it should, but it is generally counter-productive for me to resist it. — Val Kilmer

There's a strange lack of knowledge about the role of drag queens in our culture. I attribute this to the appalling state of our country's education system. Others might blame an utter lack of interest. Who am I to judge? — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Most films made about the future acquiesce toward death, and I don't want to be told how to define my future. — Val Kilmer

Spartan is about this elite unit of the armed forces named the Delta Force. I play a protege of Val Kilmer's character, and he kind of gives me a hard time. — Derek Luke

We're having Thanksgiving at our place," he said. "An old-fashioned Thanksgiving." "With drag queens and hookers and cranberry sauce?" I asked breathlessly. "Just like at Grandma's," he replied. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

If you start buying your own bullshit, you risk becoming management material. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

While Martha's skins fell off her tomatoes like a silk slip off a supermodel, our skins got caught in the deep folds and stuck stubbornly. It was like trying to peel leather pants off of a sweaty, hairy, fat guy. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. — Joyce Kilmer

What I do for a living is listen. — Val Kilmer

It's so early do you want some coffee or something? — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain was an artist working at the highest level. He wrote a book, his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that put America on the world stage for literature. It's almost as if, if you start reading that book as a racist, you cannot finish it and still be a racist. — Val Kilmer

I live on a ranch that's larger than Manhattan. That's a weird circumstance. — Val Kilmer

I take a step toward him. My arm reaches up. I don't know if I'm reaching for the pipe or for him. I want to touch his skin. I want to breathe in what he breathes. The yellow swirl. I want to be the yellow swirl. I want him to breathe me in, be sent riding on oxygen molecules deep into his lungs. I want to travel through his body, seeing what makes him happy. Attaching myself to whatever place in him sparks to life on my arrival. His blood, his tissues, his muscles, I want to burrow inside the folds like a windblown dusting of snow, so that each time I melt away he seeks me out again. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

When faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralyzed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny feet still know beautiful paths. — Joyce Kilmer

The problem with not saving is it can often mean you're - a crisis away from, as we've seen in some cases, living in your car or losing your home or - having your lights shut off. — Derek Kilmer

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
No flags are fair, if Freedom's flag be furled.
Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled. — Joyce Kilmer

I don't watch television, but I saw 'The Office' by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We'd do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I'm sitting there watching hours of it. — Val Kilmer

There's nothing good about divorce. — Val Kilmer

You can ask anyone who knows me, I've never said a racist or prejudiced thing in my life. — Val Kilmer

No matter how beneficial a disappearing act might be for me, I could never tear myself away from a show in progress. Even when the plot's tragic ending is apparent to the entire audience. Perhaps there's a deus ex machina that will lower from the ceiling and turn the whole debacle into a romantic comedy. never can tell. Paid the full ticket price, might as well stay. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I fell in love with the land and with the very old fashioned idea of leaving a physical legacy for my children. A stunning place, with a magnificent forest of trees, and a magnificent river. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard. — Val Kilmer

New York doesn't leave a lot of time for pondering forks in the road. People who have paused to gather their wits often find themselves suddenly waking up in a cookie-cutter beige apartment in Hoboken. I will not ever leave New York. I don't know how long it takes to become a true New Yorker, but I assume that if I die here ... that would qualify me. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Arteriosclerosis can be considered a disease of protein intoxication. — Kilmer S. McCully

Where [a]can you trust your own thoughts and your own intentions? Everywhere, hopefully, but it isn't always that easy. Sometimes, you have to help yourself along. — Val Kilmer

You just don't understand humility until you have children and get divorced. — Val Kilmer

I am not an alcoholic. I'm a social catalyst. People pay me to illustrate for other partygoers the chemical process involved in transforming from one persona into another drunker, more fun one. It's a matter of going from dull point A to exciting point B. And I'm a raving success at it. So successful that sometimes I wind up at Mysterious Point C. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

If you look up the definition of news in the dictionary, it isn't what you watch on TV. — Val Kilmer

Why do people play the lottery, or why do people gamble, period? You know, it's with the hope of winning something more. — Derek Kilmer

Blue Boy proves that if you don't quite fit in, then you might as well stand out with as much wit, color and audacity as you can muster. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I was never one to sit down and write a plan for my future. — Jack Kilmer

Performing in a live theater is absolutely unbeatable. It is something I have done my entire life and have a gift, it seems, for sharing thoughts live. — Val Kilmer

My father was raised in the mountains of New Mexico, and he picked cotton for a dollar a day. He was working for the family from the time he was 7. — Val Kilmer

That's the joy of art - it should be dangerous and challenging but it's just art - it's safe. — Val Kilmer

Postman is a media analyst and his theory is that television doesn't influence our culture, but that it is our culture and the presidency and anything that relies on television. — Val Kilmer

The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings. — Joyce Kilmer

Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal. — Val Kilmer

It's the first time that I've ever had an art show based on a film, but it's a photography collage. — Val Kilmer

And sometimes the show can't go on. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

The audience and I have an intimacy that is, I believe, rare, most times out. — Val Kilmer

I suppose I passed it a hundred times, But I always stop for a minute. And look at the house, the tragic house, The house with nobody in it. — Joyce Kilmer

I actually lost 90 pounds over the course of 15 months in order to save money on life insurance. — Derek Kilmer

I'm going to put a museum on my ranch and people keep saying, 'That's a huge idea.' Yeah, it's big, but not bigger than the average big movie. A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything. That's maybe a big gallery's total sales for a given year. — Val Kilmer

Don't bother asking God for answers about life. Most likely you're asking the wrong questions. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic. — Val Kilmer

But only God can make a tree. — Joyce Kilmer

I've been very fortunate and met the guys that have become, basically, philosophers and have a kind of sensibility about life that's very precious. — Val Kilmer

I figured he was adhering to the adage that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't make fun of the person paying the mortgage. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Life is precious, and when someone dies it's an opportunity to realise how precious it is. My brother drowned when I was 17. He was 15. I think I grew from that. My father didn't. It really crushed him. — Val Kilmer

Secrets that reside in the mind of one person aren't really secrets. They're unspoken fears. — Josh Kilmer-Purcell

News is something that happens that matters to you, which is not most of what we watch on television. — Val Kilmer