Top 100 Robert Downey Jr. Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Listen, smile, agree, then do whatever you were going to do anyway.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

2. “Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

3. “Worrying is like praying for something you don’t want to happen.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

4. “I think that we all do heroic things, but hero is not a noun, it’s a verb.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

5. “I don’t need an Iron Man suit. I’m already a weapon of mass seduction.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

6. “Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I’m not afraid of total failure because I don’t think that will happen. I’m not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It’s being in the middle that scares me.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

7. “I just think it’s good to be confident. If I’m not on my team why should anybody else be?”

— Robert Downey Jr.

8. “And last but not the least.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

9. “The lesson is that you can still make mistakes and be forgiven.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

10. “Discipline for me is about respect. It’s not even about self-respect; it’s about respect for life and all it offers.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

11. “I don’t think I’m in any position to give anybody advice about anything.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

12. “To me, friendship means loving tolerance.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

13. “I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal, yet all those years I was chasing after it I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends and family.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

14. “I think you end up doing the stuff you were supposed to do at the time you were supposed to do it.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

15. “The higher the stakes, the happier I am, the better I will be.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

16. “Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you’re here or out in the world dealing with problems. It’s second nature for me now. I don’t even get to the point where there’s a problem.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

17. “I think life changes every year. This is just a little more comfortable.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

18. “Look, even bad years are pretty good years I think.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

19. “I’ve always felt that if you’re not on your side, why should anyone else be. So I always encourage people to be confident, and sometime even a little falsely so, just so you can give yourself an opportunity.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

20. “I think it’s miraculous that anybody survives themselves.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

21. “I know very little about acting. I’m just an incredibly gifted faker.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

22. “The old saying is true, behind every good man theres an incredible woman.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

23. “People never change because they are under threat or under duress. Never. They change because they see something that makes their life seem valuable enough to start moving toward a life worth living.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

24. “I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

25. “It’s hard to get out of the barrel. It’s slippery around the edges and people are happy to see you fall back in.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

26. “It’s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and I like the taste of metal.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

27. “Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

28. “Sometimes you just gotta be drop-kicked out of the nest.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

29. “Worrying is like praying for something you don’t want to happen. I have such an overwhelming sense that if you’re in the right state of heart, the next right thing appears to you.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

30. “There is unpanned gold in every soul you run into, no matter what walk of life they are from.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

31. “If I was a lawyer, I’d be my own best client.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

32. “If you’re anything like me there are days when you’re convinced you know more than everyone around you. Which is often confirmed by your interactions with people.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

33. “I don’t drink these days. I am allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

34. “Everyone has a story, and the story changes, and the more I can root into the truth of things – it’s so hard – I don’t think anyone ever really puts it all together. But somewhere along the way it all became fused.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

35. “Give me a scotch, I’m starving.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

36. “Do I want to be a hero to my son? No. I would like to be a very real human being. That’s hard enough.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

37. “I’m not used to feeling like I belong where I am.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

38. “At the end of the day, anything I think I’m sacrificing I’m just giving up because it makes me feel better.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

39. “I’m an actor, a husband, a father of two, and a full-time Avenger.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

40. “I have a sense of destiny that you are led to the things you are supposed to do.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

41. “There’s somewhere you’re supposed to go, and if you get quiet enough, you’ll make it.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

42. “Nothing’s a break for me. Not even the breaks are breaks.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

43. “I don’t want to be so confident in myself.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

44. “You have to let go of the things that are darling to you. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on the shape of the scene and the intention of what everyone else needs.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

45. “McDonald’s being the official restaurant of the Olympics is like smoking being the official medicine of cancer.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

46. “I am in the continual process of transcending fear-based rituals.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

47. “I thought that the grounded-ish nature of the first Iron Man and where I think the success of it was based was I think people got excited that this was a technologically possible occurrence; and didn’t Obama order an Iron Man?”

— Robert Downey Jr.

48. “I guess the main thing is, you unconsciously take things for granted, and you think the audience is with you, because you’re with yourself.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

49. “Sometimes everything you need to know to be an actor in your mid-forties, you learn before you were 15 years old.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

50. “Violent ground-acquisition games such as football are in fact a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war.”

— Robert Downey Jr.