Top 150 David Duchovny Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you’re smart, you’ll always be humble. You can learn all you want, but there’ll always be somebody who’s never read a book who’ll know twice what you know.”

— David Duchovny

2. “Our country was founded on a distrust of government. Our founding fathers gave power to the people to keep an eye on government. So when politicians say, ‘Trust me,’ they’re actually being very un-American.”

— David Duchovny

3. “People always love and respect characters who speak the truth, even if the truth hurts.”

— David Duchovny

4. “I don’t make decisions based on money.”

— David Duchovny

5. “My whole life, Ive wanted things before I was ready. I was always pushing for the next job, the next success. I was so focused on achieving and the path that I was missing some great point about life.”

— David Duchovny

6. “The happiest moment of my life was probably when my daughter was born.”

— David Duchovny

7. “The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be – and when they’re not, we cry.”

— David Duchovny

8. “I always dreamt of being a basketball player. A dream that only I believed in.”

— David Duchovny

9. “Women’s fashion is a subtle form of bondage. It’s men’s way of binding them. We put them in these tight, high-heeled shoes, we make them wear these tight clothes and we say they look sexy. But they’re actually tied up.”

— David Duchovny

10. “I’m not going to give up. I can’t give up. Not as long as the truth is out there.”

— David Duchovny

11. “One of the scary things is that, when you’re a kid, you look at your dad as the man who has no fear. When you’re an adult, you realize your father had fear, and that you have it, too.”

— David Duchovny

12. “I love dogs. They live in the moment and don’t care about anything except affection and food. They’re loyal and happy. Humans are just too damn complicated.”

— David Duchovny

13. “I lost my virginity when I was 14. And I haven’t been able to find it.”

— David Duchovny

14. “Feelings come and go, unless you don’t feel them. Then they stay, and hurt, and grow pear-shaped and weird.”

— David Duchovny

15. “It’s always like you write a poem when you can’t really say what you’re trying to say.”

— David Duchovny

16. “I think patience is a skill and I wish I had it.”

— David Duchovny

17. “Humility is considered an un-masculine quality.”

— David Duchovny

18. “Those characters are forever searchingeven if we’re not watching them, they’re out there, in some dimension. Mulder and Scully are still doing their thing, because that’s their nature.”

— David Duchovny

19. “Maybe you should go back down to the house.′ I said, ‘I’m never going down there again, I hate people.’ And she said, ‘Don’t hate. Hate is like a poison you make for your enemy that you end up swallowing yourself.’ And I said, ‘Nice one, Obovine-Wan Kenobi.”

— David Duchovny

20. “Everybody gets the tattoo they deserve.”

— David Duchovny

21. “I really enjoy taking an outdoor shower.”

— David Duchovny

22. “In this age of media and Internet access, we are much more talkative than ever before.”

— David Duchovny

23. “Anxiety is part of creativity, the need to get something out, the need to be rid of something or to get in touch with something within.”

— David Duchovny

24. “We all know people for that length of time and people change. They mature. There is a certain expectation that a fictional character does not change. But you can’t go back and play him the same way.”

— David Duchovny

25. “I understand the self-loathing and the resentment, and the discipline that it takes to sit down in front of a typewriter or computer every single day, whether it’s going well or not going well.”

— David Duchovny

26. “The real truth about a lot of life’s mysteries can be explained by science but people don’t want to get in bed with science because it’s cold. They prefer religion, myth, drama.”

— David Duchovny

27. “I’m not a comic book character. I’m not Indiana Jones or Bond, I’m a flesh and blood guy who is ageing and changing. I don’t have to do what I did in ’93. I couldn’t do it and thank God.”

— David Duchovny

28. “I love Doctor Who and I remember the first one, which was wonderful in its low-tech quality. I also loved the theme song, which sounded like The Cure to me. Which character would I like to play in Doctor Who? Who’s the bad guy? The Dalek? OK, I’ll play him.”

— David Duchovny

29. “I’m half Jewish, half Scottish. It’s hard for me to buy anything.”

— David Duchovny

30. “Every day I try to do breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga. These things sound awfully cliche, but they help me slow down and try to point to a truth.”

— David Duchovny

31. “Sometimes when I’m swimming, I think that maybe someday I’ll put my red Speedo up for auction. Or maybe I’ll donate it to the Smithsonian. They can stuff it with two plums and a gherkin and put it on display.”

— David Duchovny

32. “Privacy is something I have come to respect. I think when I was younger I wanted to tell everybody everything, because I thought I was so damn interesting. Then I heard the snoring.”

— David Duchovny

33. “I just spend my money on the essentials. Just basically food and shelter.”

— David Duchovny

34. “A dream is the mind’s way of answering a question it hasn’t yet figured out how to ask.”

— David Duchovny

35. “I mean, there’s chemistry in life and there’s acting chemistry. I’m not saying they’re the same thing, but they’re as mysterious.”

— David Duchovny

36. “I’m very proud of my Scottish blood.”

— David Duchovny

37. “Fame does lead to money, which I don’t have a close relationship with. I’m the kind of guy who never sees the money – it all goes somewhere else. I don’t understand it, I don’t like to deal with it. I have a fear of not having it, because I grew up without it.”

— David Duchovny

38. “The critical mind is the creative mind.”

— David Duchovny

39. “Larry Grobel’s interviews are informative and insightful without being pandering or intrusive. You get the sense at all times of both intelligence at work-the interviewee’s and Grobel’s-both inspired by the encounter.”

— David Duchovny

40. “If I were gay, you know. I think Woody Allen is one of a long list of men I might go gay for.”

— David Duchovny

41. “Garry Shandling is someone I’ve publicly gone gay for, for jokes. Oh and anyone in the Twilight movies. I don’t know any of their names, but all of them. The wolves, the vampires? They’re all fantastic.”

— David Duchovny

42. “I’ve turned down jobs because I’ve said, ‘Honestly, I can’t find my way in. I can’t do it. I love you, as a director. I think the script is good. You deserve better than I think I can do.’”

— David Duchovny

43. “If young actors ask me things, I always tell them to get on set and watch how it’s done. If you can, watch the people that you like, how they work.”

— David Duchovny

44. “In high school and college, I was an athlete.”

— David Duchovny

45. “If you have Darwin, Christ and Nietzsche, they’re all going to talk at once. You need somebody who listens.”

— David Duchovny

46. “Willie Mays was the best ever. When I was in college I once made a catch like the one Mays made over his head. Sometimes when I’m lying in bed at night I think about it. It still makes me warm.”

— David Duchovny

47. “A bath tub, apparently, was the first thing I wanted to be.”

— David Duchovny

48. “Dogs are the broccaflower of the animal kingdom.”

— David Duchovny

49. “Games, by nature, have more plot options and non-linear qualities than TV and film.”

— David Duchovny

50. “I think people still have a need for miracles. Science keeps telling them there’s no life on Mars, there’s no God, nothing’s trailing Hale-Bopp, those people are just dead in their Nikes. But they want to believe in something.”

— David Duchovny