Viggo Mortensen Quotes

Jung viewed Freud as a mentor, but he never wanted to be anybody's disciple.

It doesn't take that many years for a kid to realise that they're going to die. It's always there in the back of their mind the rest of their lives.

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is.

The efforts of Black Lives Matter to bring attention to the all-too-frequent instances of unjustified violence being used by policemen may not be paying off as quickly as some might hope.

I'd like to, when it's all said and done, say that I have at least a few stories that I feel proud of.

Saying you are a patriot does not make you one; wearing a flag pin does not in itself mean anything at all.

I think that people who get to a certain position, and then try to ferociously defend it or build on it, it's kind of a dead-end street. You see people becoming miserable that way.

Ignorance breeds antipathy. Until I got to know how computers worked, I didn't want anything to do with them. I said, 'Well, why do I need them? I write letters.' Which I still do.

Joseph Campbell said the privilege of a lifetime is being yourself. That's his feeling. And I guess it's mine too.

As Aragorn said at Helm's Deep, "There is always hope."

You can't really divorce yourself and your life from the world you live in.

Each time I make a movie, it's like a paid scholarship to a different university course.

This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.

That is to say, Hillary Clinton is not, in my mind, a satisfying or calming alternative to Donald Trump.

I mean, any movie or story that makes you accept and be grateful for something about your life is doing something right.

I'm sort of contrary and stubborn sometimes. When everybody says, 'You have to read this book! You have to read this book!' I'm like 'Oh, I'll get around to it.'

Kids accept where they are because they don't know the past. They know what they have; they know where they are.

I have a multicultural background, so I tend to have an open mind about things, and I find other cultures interesting.

Usually the characters I play are men of few words, who communicate in non-verbal ways.

If you daren't enter the forest, or cannot find it, then perhaps you might find one tree, or a place where a tree could be, and just stop for a quiet moment to see what happens.

It's always interesting to play a character that obviously has a secret.

The Holocaust movie is almost a genre in itself these days.

Pinochet and Barack Obama both have the same primary goal, and that's to be president and stay president as long as allowed.

Because of the internet, satellite TV, and the digital world, you can stay in touch, you can learn about other people from a young age.

Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.

On a practical level, poetry isn't something anybody has really made a great living at. I might sell some books and, once in a while, someone might pay to hear me read.

I have a publishing company of books by me and books of others. It drew people to poetry readings and photo exhibitions and painting exhibitions that I've been doing for years before that.

I don't like people who get into fights about football - or anything else.

Some people who like dogs don't like cats, but I'm not like that.

As far as money goes, there's a saying in Denmark: 'Your last suit doesn't have any pockets.' You can't take it with you. You can make all the money you want, but who cares?

I like a twisted sense of humour. On 'A History of Violence,' David Cronenberg and I would be doing the grimmest scenes and laugh a lot.

I pursue the things I do because I'm interested in them.

With few exceptions, one ought always do what one is afraid of.

Nobody really knows anybody completely, even if they've been married to 'em for 53 years, you know?

Most actors can't make any kind of living.

I don't think special attention should be given to an actor or a singer or a baseball player or a soccer player more than anyone else, but they do have an opinion like anyone else.

I now realize that I was very fortunate to have grown up in many different places, surrounded by all kinds of people, all kinds of points of view.

I take my work seriously, but it's not the only thing that exists in the world.

People are becoming more intimately acquainted with people who are different than them - it's not so unusual anymore.

I try to avoid conflict. I don't want people to be unhappy.

Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'

You can't really go back to where you came from. I don't think any of us can.

I was raised in Argentina until I was 11 and now I go back there a lot, at least twice a year. It's a country where I feel very comfortable and it represents an important period in my life.

In terms of the movie business, being in a 'Lord of the Rings' has given me more interesting options as work.

The best thing an actor can be is flexible, because all directors are different and all actors are different.

One of the most effective tools that the Cheney-Bush junta has used to marginalize dissenting or even mildly inquisitive American citizens has been the accusation of being unpatriotic.

The first decade of your life is really important; it's formative.

When I land in a country and they ask for 'occupation,' I always just put 'artist.' I think that covers all of it.

When I was a little boy, I rode, but I didn't own horses.