Top 150 Ethan Hawke Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Few years ago I did a movie, Good Kill, about drone pilots and for four or five months I’m obsessed with the Air Force.”

— Ethan Hawke

52. “Grace is the ability to accept change. Be open and supple; the brittle break.”

— Ethan Hawke

53. “I can’t tell you how many times in the ’90s I’d meet somebody, we’d be having a nice time, and they’d sigh and go, ‘This is exactly like Before Sunrise.’ And I’d have to get up and leave.”

— Ethan Hawke

54. “I feel like everyone I meet is an imaginary friend. I don’t know. The older I get the more I wonder what’s real.”

— Ethan Hawke

55. “I’ve always watched actors on the red carpet getting drunk and making idiots of themselves and now I’m happy to join their ranks.”

— Ethan Hawke

56. “Pride. Never pretend you are not a knight of attempt to diminish yourself because you deem it will make others more comfortable. We show others the most respect by offering the best of ourselves.”

— Ethan Hawke

57. “It is very difficult for any couple who are married if both people are ambitious. I don’t know if it’s just too hard to be married to a woman that wants to be a movie star.”

— Ethan Hawke

58. “I believe in the healing restorative power of art and communication. And so that’s probably my rule. But that doesn’t apply to bedtimes. And stuff like that.”

— Ethan Hawke

59. “Sometimes people save the best part of themselves for their art.”

— Ethan Hawke

60. “Like a dead branch falling from a tree, which them decomposes and nourishes the soil, your disappointments can transform into the elements of change and growth.”

— Ethan Hawke

61. “Right now the only people I can really fall in love with are people who don’t really, truly want me around. Now why do I do that?”

— Ethan Hawke

62. “I’ve always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don’t care if it’s in movies or theater or whatever – if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in.”

— Ethan Hawke

63. “The thing that makes a great genre movie is one that’s not just entertainment, not just horror or sci-fi or whatever. The ones I love are the genre pictures with some subversive message underlying it all.”

— Ethan Hawke

64. “In New York, you’ve got Donald Trump, Woody Allen, a crack addict and a regular Joe, and they’re all on the same subway car.”

— Ethan Hawke

65. “It just makes sense to remember gratitude and the place that gratitude should have in your life, and that none of us are owed these wonderful experiences, and we should always make the best of them.”

— Ethan Hawke

66. “I’d really rather that nobody had a gun, and then nobody would have to worry about it. That would be more my theory. In America, there’s this knee-jerk response that more walls and more guns make people safer, and I’m entirely suspect of that way of thinking.”

— Ethan Hawke

67. “My relationship to reality has been so utterly skewed for so long that I don’t even notice it any more. It’s just my reality.”

— Ethan Hawke

68. “Often we imagine that we will work hard... arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, an activity.”

— Ethan Hawke

69. “I personally don’t think grand gestures are actually romantic. The most romantic moments of my life have been so subtle and small. A snowstorm breakfast, a walk, an accidental meeting. Whenever you start planning these grand things, ‘I’m gonna pick the great flower from the top of Mt. Everest’, you’re already losing. You’re trying too hard.”

— Ethan Hawke

70. “I want to want to try to never waste energy degrading someone else. Also, I want to try not to see life as a competition.”

— Ethan Hawke

71. “Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would.”

— Ethan Hawke

72. “I think having nature be a part of people’s lives helps all of us see ourselves as part of something larger.”

— Ethan Hawke

73. “And the best films feel like a fist punching you in the solar plexus and all elements of the filmmaking process – the acting, the design, the cinematography, the music, is all working to one end.”

— Ethan Hawke

74. “Speech. Do not speak ill of others. A knight does not spread news that he does not know to be certain, or condemn things that he does not understand.”

— Ethan Hawke

75. “And the joy of my job – and it’s really true – is that it’s constantly evolving and changing.”

— Ethan Hawke

76. “In all of our society, but especially in Hollywood, there is an obsession with perfection that can lead to self-loathing and neurosis and all that kind of stuff.”

— Ethan Hawke

77. “The writing process was some of the most exciting and rewarding moments of my life. It felt a lot like being in a band.”

— Ethan Hawke

78. “Justice. There is only one thing for which a knight has no patience: injustice. Every true knight fights for human dignity at all times.”

— Ethan Hawke

79. “But the truth is, I’ve never wanted to be a movie star – and I’ve been pretty clear about that.”

— Ethan Hawke

80. “I love working on scripts. I love coming up with ideas about what people would dress like or talk like. I love all that.”

— Ethan Hawke

81. “I’ve had different opportunities in my life, but I’ve tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it’s really not a barometer at all.”

— Ethan Hawke

82. “The girls who like me aren’t the ones I like. Or, if I do and they want to commit, I suddenly need tons of time with my friends.”

— Ethan Hawke

83. “Sometimes people, their creative drive comes from an energy to try to heal themselves.”

— Ethan Hawke

84. “Remember, a friend does not need you to impress him. A friend loves you because you are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. Beware of grand gestures; the real mettle of friendship is forged in life’s daily workings.”

— Ethan Hawke

85. “I have had so many bad auditions.”

— Ethan Hawke

86. “The constant buzz and pressure and noise and static of the Internet, and the way it makes young people feel makes it difficult to grow up and develop the way one might want to.”

— Ethan Hawke

87. “It was never in my dreams to make my personal life anybody else’s business.”

— Ethan Hawke

88. “I’m horrified to admit that I just love Salinger. I was devastated to find out that other people feel the same way.”

— Ethan Hawke

89. “Sometimes in the life of an actor you’re not getting offered any jobs that speak to you. The trouble with acting is that you’re only as good as your opportunities.”

— Ethan Hawke

90. “At every turn, when humanity is asked the question, ‘Do you want temporary economic gain or long-term environmental loss, which one do you prefer,’ we invariably choose the money.”

— Ethan Hawke

91. “If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.”

— Ethan Hawke

92. “I remember being a kid and sleeping over at my friend’s house and staying up late and watching ‘Nosferatu.’ Vampire movies are supposed to be secret and bad. They should be rated R.”

— Ethan Hawke

93. “It’s so hard for every young person, trying to figure out the adult you want to be.”

— Ethan Hawke

94. “It’s certainly an interesting moment to try to talk about, ’cause you could make a great show about the police force right now, with all that’s happening in the news and Ferguson and all of it.”

— Ethan Hawke

95. “The biggest problem in my life is trying to be the kind of man that I want to be, the father that I want to be, and how to process the failure of my marriage.”

— Ethan Hawke

96. “With practice, you build the road to accomplish your goals. Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don’t save anything for the walk home.”

— Ethan Hawke

97. “I met a lot of famous people when I was about 24. And none of them seemed very appealing. And so I didn’t know why I would struggle to be that kind of person.”

— Ethan Hawke

98. “A knight sets out to illuminate the darkness in society, not from its leaves but from its roots. This is how justice will be realized. Find the source.”

— Ethan Hawke

99. “The only thing I can point to of why I survived is I have a family that loves me and never wanted any money from me.”

— Ethan Hawke

100. “Time is what creates trust.”

— Ethan Hawke