Top 40 Emile Hirsch Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness – give me truth.”

— Emile Hirsch

2. “The willingness to keep learning is, I think, the most important thing about trying to be good at anything. You never want to stop learning.”

— Emile Hirsch

3. “On ‘Into The Wild’ I spent months risking my life and on ‘Speed Racer’ I spent 60 days acting in front of a green screen. No danger to my physical self, but I sure had to use my imagination.”

— Emile Hirsch

4. “As far as dieting and weight loss go, diet and exercise actually works. Lots of running and healthy eating.”

— Emile Hirsch

5. “I think I’ve always been half out of my shell and half in. Sometimes I can be extremely wild and sometimes I can be extremely shy. It just depends on the day.”

— Emile Hirsch

6. “I identify with someone wanting something to work out, but not being able to get through the rocks to the river.”

— Emile Hirsch

7. “Maybe you will be afraid and maybe you will fail, but the courage to take risks in any part of your life is, I feel, a very worthwhile way to live.”

— Emile Hirsch

8. “I was so grateful to have made ‘Into the Wild’ before I made ‘Speed Racer’ because on ‘Speed Racer’ I was indoors every single day, every single scene, on a green screen. Some of the time, just to pass the time, I would think back to climbing mountains in Alaska. That really helped me.”

— Emile Hirsch

9. “Artistic ambition is important. And it seems it would be a great time to do some theatre, like a new extreme.”

— Emile Hirsch

10. “In Dogtown, skateboards are like bikes to the Chinese.”

— Emile Hirsch

11. “I don’t have an interest in any car that isn’t good for the environment, other than maybe an aesthetic quality in a picture book.”

— Emile Hirsch

12. “James Dean taught me not to speed, River Phoenix taught me not to DO speed, and Marlon Brando taught me to slow down on the cheeseburgers.”

— Emile Hirsch

13. “A lot of the stuff in ‘Speed Racer’ has never been done before, from it having a multi-tone, to it having a retro-cool family movie, to having the photo-realism with the CG-backgrounds and infinite focus the way they worked with these digital cameras, to even the color experimentation.”

— Emile Hirsch

14. “I’m sort of like a rat in a maze – I’m moving forward, and any choice I make at the time seems like the only one I can make.”

— Emile Hirsch

15. “There’s something about the good-hearted guy fighting the system. I just love that. That’s how ‘Speed’ is. He’s a really focused guy with a heart of gold and the corporations are trying to crush him and use him for his skills to make them more money.”

— Emile Hirsch

16. “When I got a lap dance, because I was 17, they had to put a massive pillow between me and the girl when she was grinding me. It was weird, yet pleasurable.”

— Emile Hirsch

17. “Sometimes good days are not always fun, sometimes they are good because of how hard they were and gratifying for those reasons.”

— Emile Hirsch

18. “Well, when I was a kid and I watched ‘Speed Racer,’ I used to always watch it in the morning with my cereal. And when I ate the cereal, I would pour soda into the cereal because we never really had milk for some reason, I don’t know.”

— Emile Hirsch

19. “People always ask me about career choices, though it rarely ever seems like any kind of choice. It’s just like, I really want to do something, this is what I can do, and that’s it. I’m lucky to be doing this at all.”

— Emile Hirsch

20. “I’m not a ball in a pinball machine. I know what I want.”

— Emile Hirsch

21. “We want to do for ‘Hamlet’ what Baz Luhrmann did for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining.”

— Emile Hirsch

22. “Believing in yourself you gain confidence, which allows you to relax. Relaxation is one of the most important parts about acting.”

— Emile Hirsch

23. “I had the misfortune of getting what skateboarders call hippers. It’s when you fall on your hip again and again and again, just the same spot. It turns into like a blue purple bruise and it’s just torture because I had to keep on doing the same move, going around in the pool again.”

— Emile Hirsch

24. “There’s something just so kind of smooth about politicians.”

— Emile Hirsch

25. “It was very, very challenging being on this thing called the gimbal. It would throw you around, give you whiplash, and they’d tie you down.”

— Emile Hirsch

26. “I’m a very, very conservative driver.”

— Emile Hirsch

27. “The genres are widening. I don’t think that there’s as many limitations on the kinds of projects that actors can do as there once was.”

— Emile Hirsch

28. “I don’t really like the slogan ‘It boy.’”

— Emile Hirsch

29. “I remember when I saw ‘The Matrix’ when I was 13, I saw it in the theaters, and I was so blown away by it. It was one of the most memorable experiences I definitely ever had in the theater.”

— Emile Hirsch

30. “Believe it or not, I got into the charismatic, shady, sly heart of Sedgewick Bell by watching CNN and C-SPAN.”

— Emile Hirsch

31. “I’ve realized that what you think of when you make a ‘big movie,’ if it’s actually a green screen movie, it’s like doing independent New York theater because you don’t have any backgrounds or props. So it’s kind of like making the lowest budgeted film you could possibly imagine, plus $100 million.”

— Emile Hirsch

32. “I’ve definitely had ideas and plans that sometimes exceed my means and capabilities.”

— Emile Hirsch

33. “If you give an actor any wiggle room to whine in situations where they want to whine, you’re gonna whine.”

— Emile Hirsch

34. “How much cooler was Oz than seeing the little dude behind the curtain?”

— Emile Hirsch

35. “I know what wanting and craving adventure feels like, I can really relate to that.”

— Emile Hirsch

36. “When you’re reading Thoreau you look at Hollywood differently, let me tell ya!”

— Emile Hirsch

37. “The traveling and adventure always lift my spirits soaring with exhilaration.”

— Emile Hirsch

38. “A lot of the things I find funniest about people are their shortcomings that they’re oblivious to, but that they’re constantly reminding everyone around them of.”

— Emile Hirsch

39. “Shooting in 3D hasn’t really affected the way I work as an actor that much. Maybe that’s not a good thing. Maybe I’m not being diligent enough.”

— Emile Hirsch

40. “I’m not staying away from any genre. I’m trying to get scripts that I like.”

— Emile Hirsch

41. “I have a lot of people in my life who are truly ridiculous characters, and they’re very, very funny people, but they don’t really try to be. They’re not cracking jokes.”

— Emile Hirsch