Top 100 James Franco Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Create your world around your work. Create your work around your life. Let other people help you shape it.”

— James Franco

2. “Teens today rule the world. The whole culture – movies, music – is pointed at young people. They have so ‘much’ power.”

— James Franco

3. “All I know is that when I needed McDonald’s, McDonald’s was there for me.”

— James Franco

4. “Sometimes I get a little sad, and I feel like being alone. Then I talk to my cat about it, and he reminds me I’m James Franco. Then we dance.”

— James Franco

5. “I feel there are so many things in this world that have been and are being created that I could spend the rest of my life thinking about, and I couldn’t cover all the things I’m interested in. That to me is what makes life sweet-learning and exploring.”

— James Franco

6. “If this is the only life, then why I’m not just doing everything I want to do.”

— James Franco

7. “Dreams and expectations also have the very dark flipside of disappointment, broken dreams.”

— James Franco

8. “The selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, ‘Hello, this is me.’”

— James Franco

9. “They say living well is the best revenge but sometimes writing well is even better.”

— James Franco

10. “You want to be interesting? Be interested.”

— James Franco

11. “My style is casual-chic? Casual-messy?”

— James Franco

12. “I’ve decided I can’t really control people’s perceptions of me. All I can do is decide on what I work on and how hard I work on it.”

— James Franco

13. “I view filmmaking as a director’s medium.”

— James Franco

14. “If liking Katy Perry and drinking margaritas is gay, then who wants to be straight?!”

— James Franco

15. “I don’t need a vacation in the traditional sense, like I would if I had a job I hated.”

— James Franco

16. “I used to care about how I looked. Now I don’t care as much. Maybe it’s because I’m so handsome.”

— James Franco

17. “I don’t even like to sleep – I feel as if there’s too much to do.”

— James Franco

18. “I am actually turned off when I look at an account and don’t see any selfies, because I want to know whom I’m dealing with. In our age of social networking, the selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, ‘Hello, this is me.’”

— James Franco

19. “Showing the addiction and unusual sexual practices are ways of just outlining a much bigger character trait.”

— James Franco

20. “A director on a film really sets the tone of how people go about things, so everybody is happy to be at work and everybody does their best.”

— James Franco

21. “Sometimes rabbits, like, turn me on. I don’t know why.”

— James Franco

22. “Japanese moe relationships socially dysfunctional men develop deep attachments to body pillows with women painted on them.”

— James Franco

23. “I was an English major at UCLA when I was 18, and then I left after a year to start acting. I was educating myself during that time.”

— James Franco

24. “For April Fools Day, someone played a really cruel joke on me. They stole ALL my mirrors and I had to go hours without seeing myself. I mean, I couldn’t even do my daily affirmations. What kind of world is this? I tell you, it’s artists like myself that really suffer.”

— James Franco

25. “Everyone pretends to be normal and be your best friend, but underneath, everyone is living some other life you don’t know about, and if only we had a camera on us at all times, we could go and watch each other’s tapes and find out what each of us was really like.”

— James Franco

26. “I guess it’s ironic. I just did the Gucci cologne ad, and I was the cologne thief in junior high.”

— James Franco

27. “I have high aspirations. I want to be an architect.”

— James Franco

28. “I’m a big cardigan sweater guy.”

— James Franco

29. “I don’t have many hobbies. If I think of hobbies, maybe ping pong. But I don’t have a desire to get a ping pong medal.”

— James Franco

30. “Quite Franc-ly, I think I am an asset to this world we live in. I know that if I didn’t exist, there would be some truly upset people just waiting for me. A life without Franco is like a kitten without fur. That’s what my reflection told me.”

— James Franco

31. “My name is James Edward Franco. Ted is a nickname for Edward. That’s what my parents called me. I also got ‘Teddy Ruxpin’ a lot. It just got to a point where I got sick of it, so when a teacher called out ‘James Franco’ my junior year of high school, I didn’t correct her.”

— James Franco

32. “The wind came in languid gusts like whispered reminders.”

— James Franco

33. “He was so. So dirty, and just moving in front of me, and cute. I was in love with him, especially because he was talking to me.”

— James Franco

34. “I don’t consider weed to be any worse than having a beer.”

— James Franco

35. “You say I sucked at the Oscars. I was a genius at the Oscars. That was experimental tuxedo sleep art.”

— James Franco

36. “When I was a young actor, I just didn’t understand how to function in this business as an artist. It is a business, it’s called the film business for a reason, there’s money involved. But on the flip side, nowadays I do not let the business side of it rule either. It’s a balance.”

— James Franco

37. “I don’t go on vacation. I don’t really need vacation.”

— James Franco

38. “When I was younger, I didn’t know that I should just listen to my own voice, my own artistic sense of things when I was choosing projects, because one of the biggest creative decisions that an actor can make in the film business is what you will work on.”

— James Franco

39. “If you have a profession that depends on what you look like, you can’t blame somebody for caring about that. It’s part of their job. So it’s vanity but it’s also not in a lot of cases. It’s being professional.”

— James Franco

40. “If the work is good, what does it matter? I’m doing it because I love it. Why not do as many things I love as I can? As long as the work is good.”

— James Franco

41. “I was kind of scared of failing at acting.”

— James Franco

42. “If you just read the book, you’re taking in the narrative, you’re taking in the characters, you’re understanding it in a certain way. If you make a movie it’s really an act of translation.”

— James Franco

43. “I’ve been acting for many years now, and I find there’s nothing I enjoy more than making films with my friends and people I like, who also are the funniest people around.”

— James Franco

44. “As an actor in the classroom, you’re revealing so much, and teachers are, you know, they’re just critiquing like a painting or a piece of work; it’s like, it’s you, and it’s your emotions that they’re working with.”

— James Franco

45. “I love to bring humour into my work. Because comedy is not a huge part of the art world. And big-business film takes itself very seriously.”

— James Franco

46. “If I’m working on a film, I’ll do sit-ups for before I shoot. Like, 100 in the morning or something.”

— James Franco

47. “Did you ever see Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke? That’s what happens if you really smoke weed and make a movie. You get two guys and no plot and it’s basically like, ‘Yeah! Let’s drive a van made of weed!’ And that’s pretty much the movie.”

— James Franco

48. “I actually don’t smoke weed, but I’ve played a lot of stoners – especially with Seth Rogen.”

— James Franco

49. “It feels really sad, to me, to go to a dark bedroom. It’s like surrendering to the night or something.”

— James Franco

50. “Acting is an art form and you want to take roles that are challenged and it’s more of a challenge I think to play dark characters. Not that I want to always play those, but it is a challenge and challenges are rewarding and fun.”

— James Franco

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