Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

23 quotes

The American actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (b. 1981) is remembered as much for penetrating words as for professional achievements. Their thinking spans from Movies to History, revealing a mind that refused to stay in one lane. 27 of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Movies, History, Art, Alone, and Thankful. A line that stays with you: "If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone."

“The career stuff is for business people.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Business

All Quotes by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

“As soon as you are trying to be funny or dramatic, that's when things start feeling fake and boring.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Funny

“Movies are different from real life.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“To be honest, I sort of feel like 'movie actor' isn't of this time. I love it. But it's a 20th-century art form.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Art

“My dad never blew anything up, but he probably had friends who did. He and my mom have always preached that the pen is mightier than a Molotov cocktail.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Dad

“I mean, movies in general tend to sort of portray time, space and identity as these very solid things. Time moves forward. Space is what it is. You are you, and you're always you.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“While I'm not a celebrity, it's such a weird concept that society has cooked up for us. Astronauts and teachers are much more amazing than actors.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Amazing

“There's an absolute prejudice that good movies are dramas and comedies are more dismissable. But I couldn't disagree more.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

History

“The spiral in a snail's shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It's the same ratio that you'll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Music

“If the goal is to get the best artists, actors, and filmmakers in the world to create the best movies, Hollywood does a decent job. And I think no one would disagree with me that it also makes a ton of bad movies and employs a bunch of hacks.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“Every day I've got to be thankful that I am alive, and you never know - the cliche is, I guess, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so you'd better be at peace with whatever you got going at the moment.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Peace

“Making checklists of things you're looking for in a person is the numero uno thing you can do to guarantee you'll be alone forever.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Alone

“Celebrity doesn't have anything to do with art or craft. It's about being rich and thinking that you're better than everybody else.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Art

“Even today, in our progressive times, in most movies that come out, the men have to have biceps and the women have to be thin or something.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Cool

“I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“The movies I watch and the music I listen to and the books I read - those are important to me. It's very important to me, and I don't know what I would do without those things.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Movies

“Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

History

“I was studying for the SAT's and learning lines.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Learning

“If you're going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Alone