Top 250 Matthew McConaughey Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “So, here I am, fifty years in, looking back to look forward.”

— Matthew McConaughey

202. “The first step that leads to our identity in life is usually not I know who I am, but rather I know who I’m not. Process of elimination. Too many options can make a tyrant out of any of us, so we should get rid of the excess in our lives that keep us from being more of ourselves. When we decrease the options that don’t feed us, we eventually, almost accidentally, have more options in front of us that do.”

— Matthew McConaughey

203. “It was time to trade in any red sport cars I sill had.”

— Matthew McConaughey

204. “I didn’t want to miss my twenties preparing for the rest of my life.”

— Matthew McConaughey

205. “I go on The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast is one of the websites that I check out.”

— Matthew McConaughey

206. “We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows.”

— Matthew McConaughey

207. “You’re gonna love it, buddy, it is your kinda town. You can walk into anywhere in your flip-flops, have a seat at a bar, and you’ll have a cowboy to the right of you, a lesbian to your left, an Indian on the other side, and a midget tendin bar. All you gotta be is yourself in that town.”

— Matthew McConaughey

208. “The first step that leads to our identity in life is usually not “I know who I am”, but rather “I know who I’m not”. Process of elimination... Knowing who we are is hard. Eliminate who we’re not first, and we’ll find ourselves where we need to be.”

— Matthew McConaughey

209. “I’ve never cared much for destinations. The idea of landing is too finite for my imagination and sense of song. Give me a direction and a sixteen-lane highway with room to swerve and explore along the way. Like jazz, I prefer to see life as a river.”

— Matthew McConaughey

210. “More than enough room to have some dogs, raise a family, and bang on my congas in my birthday suit without disturbing a neighbor.”

— Matthew McConaughey

211. “She’s a woman that says “I’m gonna” before she can, “I would” before she could, and “I’ll be there” before she’s invited. Fiercely loyal to convenience and controversy, she’s always had an adversarial relationship with context and consideration, because they ask permission. She might not be the smartest person in the room but she ain’t crying.”

— Matthew McConaughey

212. “Time to catch the hero I’ve been chasing, see if the sun will melt the wax that holds my wings or if the heat is just a mirage.”

— Matthew McConaughey

213. “I’ve never felt like a victim. I have a lot of proof that the world is conspiring to make me happy. I’ve always gotten away with more in life than in my dreams.”

— Matthew McConaughey

214. “Values travel. And sometimes we get a stamp in our passport just by crossing the street.”

— Matthew McConaughey

215. “In the fact of fate that death and birth bring we recognize we are both human and God. We find the belief that our choices matter, that it’s not all for nothing, it’s all for everything.”

— Matthew McConaughey

216. “Now it’s upside down and backwards, the foot’s on the other shoe.”

— Matthew McConaughey

217. “More often than we care to admit it, we don’t get what we want because we quit early or we didn’t take the necessary risk to get it.”

— Matthew McConaughey

218. “I hope to give my children the opportunity to find what they love to do, work to be great at it, pursue it, and do it. Rather than cover their eyes from ugly truths, I want to cover their eyes from fictional fantasies that will handicap their ability to negotiate tomorrow’s reality. I believe they can handle it.”

— Matthew McConaughey

219. “We all have scars, we gonna have more. Rather than struggle against time and waste it, let’s dance with time and redeem it. Cause we don’t live longer when we try not to die. We live longer when we are too busy living.”

— Matthew McConaughey

220. “They what, Matthew?! Broke into your house!? Those son of a bitches, you keep your head up,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with smokin a little fun stuff and playing your drums naked at night in your own home; who do they think they are comin in your house like that?!”

— Matthew McConaughey

221. “I had crossed a truth. Did I find it? I don’t know, I think it found me. Why? Because I put myself in a place to be found. I put myself in a place to receive it. How do we know when we cross a truth or a truth crosses us? I believe the truth is all around us all the time. The anonymous angels, the butterflies, the answers, are always right there, but we don’t always identify, grasp, hear, see, or access them – because we’re not in the right place to. We have to make a plan.”

— Matthew McConaughey

222. “Some people will never be more attractive than in that first impression, from a distance, in that light, at that time, in that way we saw them, when our hopes became highest and our wish fulfillment was fully leaded. They will never look better than in that initial, fuzzy-edged glimpse. The impression. The WIDE SHOT.”

— Matthew McConaughey

223. “They taught me not to hate.”

— Matthew McConaughey

224. “As a father, I often contradict myself, and I know I could do a better job of practicing what I preach, but I’ve also learned that if the message is true, don’t forget it, and forgive the messenger, even if he does.”

— Matthew McConaughey

225. “I had branded affirmative humor and delusional optimism, I had kept as much masculinity in the neutered rom-com male as you could, and I had succeeded in giving the audience what they wanted.”

— Matthew McConaughey

226. “To never say I can’t. To never lie.”

— Matthew McConaughey

227. “There is nothing wrong with smokin a little fun stuff and playing your drums naked at night in your own home; who do they think they are comin in your house like that?!”

— Matthew McConaughey

228. “If everything we did was right, we’d never know what was wrong.” I’d been on the receiving end of a few of these humble pie interventions but not this year; no, my family knew I was going through a challenging time.”

— Matthew McConaughey

229. “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.”

— Matthew McConaughey

230. “What is success to me?” Continue to ask yourself that question. How are you prosperous? What is your relevance? Your answer may change over time and that’s fine, but do yourself this favor: Whatever your answer is, don’t choose anything that will jeopardize your soul. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don’t spend time with anything that antagonizes your character.”

— Matthew McConaughey

231. “Reach beyond your grasp, have immortal finish lines, and turn your red light green, because a roof is.”

— Matthew McConaughey

232. “We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.”

— Matthew McConaughey

233. “The unjust murder sparked a social justice revolution in America and around the world, and as racism reared its ugly head into the spotlight once again, we were reminded that All Lives couldn’t matter until Black Lives matter more. Each of us had to make sacrifices, pivot, persist, and deal – we had to get relative.”

— Matthew McConaughey

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

— Matthew McConaughey

235. “Sometimes we find our frequency by holding on to a moral bottom line in the midst of chaos. Sometimes we find it by breaking the rules and running the red light to get home.”

— Matthew McConaughey

236. “We need discipline, guidelines, context, and responsibility early in any new endeavor. It’s the time to sacrifice. To learn, to observe, to take heed. If and when we get knowledge of the space, the craft, the people, and the plan, then we can let our freak flag fly, and create. Creativity needs borders.”

— Matthew McConaughey

237. “It’s better to jump than fall.”

— Matthew McConaughey

238. “Did you know I made up, coined, and created the term McConaissance? I did.”

— Matthew McConaughey

239. “Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss, who are we to think we don’t deserve these fortunes when they are in our grasp? Who are we to think we haven’t earned them?”

— Matthew McConaughey

240. “Earn it with you, then earn it with me, then we earn it for we.”

— Matthew McConaughey

241. “Hurricane Katrina to a family emergency, to the profound choices we have to make in life, I’ve found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, then respond. Aware that I needed more as.”

— Matthew McConaughey

242. “Having the courage to live it. To actually walk away from that place where it found us, take that truth with us into the screaming arena of our daily lives, practice it, and make it an active part of who we are. If we can do that, then we are on our way to Heaven on Earth. Where what we want is what we need. Where what we need is what we want.”

— Matthew McConaughey

243. “A denied expectation hurts more than a denied hope, while a fulfilled hope makes us happier than a fulfilled expectation. Hope’s got a higher return on happiness and less debit on denial, it’s just not as measurable. My parents measured.”

— Matthew McConaughey

244. “I learned resilience, consequences, responsibility, and how to work hard.”

— Matthew McConaughey

245. “Nobody forgives themselves quicker than she does and therefore she carries zero stress.”

— Matthew McConaughey

246. “Why? Because at halftime they put a ceiling, a roof, a limit on their belief in themselves, aka the “prevent defense.”

— Matthew McConaughey

247. “No one can live up to the pedestal we put them on if we always put them on one.”

— Matthew McConaughey

248. “As individuals, we unite in our values.”

— Matthew McConaughey

249. “I loved the work, the process, the construction, the architecture of building and owning my man.”

— Matthew McConaughey

250. “One must leave home if he is to find home.”

— Matthew McConaughey