Top 250 Matthew McConaughey Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “If everything we did was right, we’d never know what was wrong.”

— Matthew McConaughey

102. “I’ve never been a manipulator, even in my bachelor days. I never wanted to do things to people that could catch up with me later on.”

— Matthew McConaughey

103. “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze. When you’re stuck in the storm, pray for luck and make the best of it.”

— Matthew McConaughey

104. “Romantic comedies are built to be light. They’re built for a certain buoyancy.”

— Matthew McConaughey

105. “I’ve earned a few scars getting through this rodeo of humanity. I’ve been good at it, I’ve been not so good at it, and ultimately, I’ve found some pleasure in all of it, either way.”

— Matthew McConaughey

106. “We have to prepare for the job so we can be free to do the work.”

— Matthew McConaughey

107. “Then we return to civilization, able to better tend to our tendencies. Why? Because we took a walkabout.”

— Matthew McConaughey

108. “Time alone simplifies the heart.”

— Matthew McConaughey

109. “You know how it is, when you’re up to nothin no good’s usually next.”

— Matthew McConaughey

110. “I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget.”

— Matthew McConaughey

111. “It was a time when I was often more concerned with not running red lights than I was with investing in the greenlights.”

— Matthew McConaughey

112. “We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.”

— Matthew McConaughey

113. “Guilt and regret kill many a man before their time.”

— Matthew McConaughey

114. “Death, family crisis, and newborns – the end of a life, trying to keep a life, and welcoming in a new one – these are three things that will shake your floor, give you clarity, remind you of your mortality, and hence, give you courage to live harder, stronger, and truer. Three things that make you ask yourself, “What matters?” Three things that make you realize, “It all does.”

— Matthew McConaughey

115. “No longer chasing butterflies, Camila and I planted our garden so they could come to us.”

— Matthew McConaughey

116. “You gotta feed the geese to keep the blood flowing. Alright? Keep the rhythm below the belt.”

— Matthew McConaughey

117. “The sooner we become less impressed with our life, our accomplishments, our career, our relationships, the prospects in front of us – the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things – the sooner we get better at them. We must be more than just happy to be here.”

— Matthew McConaughey

118. “All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up. It’s a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.”

— Matthew McConaughey

119. “The inevitability of a situation is not relative; when we accept the outcome of a given situation as inevitable, then how we choose to deal with it is relative.”

— Matthew McConaughey

120. “I’ve done peyote in Real de Catorce, Mexico, in a cage with a mountain lion. I’ve had seventy-eight stitches sewn into my forehead, by a veterinarian. I’ve had four concussions from falling out of four trees, three of them on a full moon. I’ve bongoed naked until the cops arrested me.”

— Matthew McConaughey

121. “The future is the monster, not the boogeyman under the bed. The past is just something we’re trying to outrun tomorrow. The monster is the future. The unknown. The boundaries not yet crossed. The challenge not yet met. The potential not yet realized. The dragon not yet tamed. On a one way collision course with no turning back. The future, the monster, is always waiting for us, and always sees us a-comin’. So we should lift our heads, look it in the eye, and watch it heed.”

— Matthew McConaughey

122. “Good looks don’t cook the dinner, but they’ll get you a seat at the table, and I was determined to take advantage of any seat I could get.”

— Matthew McConaughey

123. “They are not trying to win arguments of right or wrong. They are trying to understand each other.”

— Matthew McConaughey

124. “I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.”

— Matthew McConaughey

125. “I keep a diary – one for each film and foreign land I travel to.”

— Matthew McConaughey

126. “We are not here to tolerate our differences, we are here to accept them. We are not here to celebrate our sameness, we are here to salute our distinctions. We are not born into equal circumstances, or with equal abilities, but we should have equal opportunity.”

— Matthew McConaughey

127. “If you are there, God,” I prayed, “I hope you appreciate a man who won’t retreat from the sweat it takes to gain self-determination. I hope you will reward a man who has decided to quit hiding behind the fatal blind belief that it’s all in your hands.”

— Matthew McConaughey

128. “I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.”

— Matthew McConaughey

129. “I had a van that I customized so I could basically live out of that while I traveled and then I graduated to an Airstream. I’ve got three Airstreams now and they’re all customized different ways. The good thing about those is there’s not enough square footage to blow all your money.”

— Matthew McConaughey

130. “See, ‘A Time to Kill’ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.”

— Matthew McConaughey

131. “I’m a golfer, and what are the two sports you can do till you drop? Golf and surfing. They’re great for you limber-wise, they’re great for you health-wise, and they put you in sweet locations.”

— Matthew McConaughey

132. “Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?”

— Matthew McConaughey

133. “I like to be able to wear something that is appropriate for wherever the day takes me: to work, on a hike and then out to dinner. I like to take the formality out of the day’s schedule and be ready for any off-road detour.”

— Matthew McConaughey

134. “Great leaders are not always in front, they also know who to follow.”

— Matthew McConaughey

135. “An honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind, and when we lie down on ours at night, no matter who’s in our bed, we all sleep alone.”

— Matthew McConaughey

136. “As an actor for hire, my job is to do some pre-production work for myself. Then my job is to show up and give the best performance I can.”

— Matthew McConaughey

137. “I come from a family of disciplinarians where you better follow the rules, until you’re man enough to break em.”

— Matthew McConaughey

138. “No matter who is in our bed each night we sleep with ourselves.”

— Matthew McConaughey

139. “The only thing I ever knew I wanted to be was a father. To me, fatherhood meant a man had made it in life. Growing up, I said “yes sir” and “no sir” to my father and his friends because they were fathers. Fatherhood, what I most revered in life, what I was most impressed with, was now what I was about to become more involved with. The message of manhood that came to me at my own father’s passing had newborn relevance as I became one myself. Yes sir.”

— Matthew McConaughey

140. “Life is not a popularity contest. Be brave, take the hill, but first, answer the question, “What is my hill?”

— Matthew McConaughey

141. “For me, one of the toughest things about Valentine’s Day is that it gets geared up as the day to profess your love. See, T-E-S-T – that’s a bad word that doesn’t go with L-O-V-E.”

— Matthew McConaughey

142. “I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.”

— Matthew McConaughey

143. “My last name is originally Irish. I’m not exactly sure whereabouts it’s from, but I’ve got family branches that were traced back there.”

— Matthew McConaughey

144. “My favorite dish is cleaning out the fridge on Sunday night and improvising a great medley.”

— Matthew McConaughey

145. “When I first starting making money, when I first made my first six-digits, I was – my big thing was I went to put super unleaded in my truck for the first time.”

— Matthew McConaughey

146. “Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.”

— Matthew McConaughey

147. “I don’t dabble and spend much mind or time dealing with, I don’t know, people’s perceptions of me. I truly don’t.”

— Matthew McConaughey

148. “I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.”

— Matthew McConaughey

149. “Yes, it is the Big Easy, home of the shortest hangover on the planet, where libation can greet you on Monday morning with the same smile as it did on Saturday night.”

— Matthew McConaughey

150. “A coach, especially at a college level – much more at a college or high school level, than at a pro level – you’re more of a teacher than an actual coach.”

— Matthew McConaughey