Top 100 Robert Downey Jr. Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Im thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, Why stop at one? I don’t like being limited in that way. Therefore, I’m considering a platton of monkeys, so that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing feces around.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

52. “If I was a Pokemon, I’ll either be a Psyduck or a Jigglypuff.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

53. “I know if you talk faster and use more ten-dollar words than everyone around you, you convince half of them that they should shut up because you know what you’re talking about.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

54. “A lot of my peer group think I’m an eccentric bisexual, like I may even have an ammonia-filled tentacle somewhere on my body. That’s okay.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

55. “Does any new parent, even if you’re not a first-time parent, ever really know what to do?”

— Robert Downey Jr.

56. “I make faces for cash and chicken.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

57. “Whenever I watch someone doing something, even if it doesn’t turn out so great, I at least admire their intentions and stuff.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

58. “I never know when the seeds are being laid, I’m just like, “Wow, that’s a pretty cool scene. Is that? Are we laying seeds here?””

— Robert Downey Jr.

59. “I’m a soldier who didn’t know how nasty the battle was going to be, and now, I’ve got a purple heart and I’m back.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

60. “But I will agree that I think that things happen with people in relationships, that you might have been able to enjoy Morocco, say, if you weren’t getting out of a bad marriage. You know what I mean?”

— Robert Downey Jr.

61. “I’m not a poster boy for good behavior and recovery in Hollywood, I’m just a guy who knows he has a lot to be grateful for.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

62. “I’m not 40 yet. I wouldn’t even bother comparing myself to Chaplin.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

63. “I wouldn’t want to see anything irreparable happen, but I also like it when seemingly irreparable thing occur and men and women find a way to move past it.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

64. “I guess the issue for me is to keep things dynamic.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

65. “I think paranoia goes from generation to generation. It’s convenient to imagine that there’s a few people controlling everything, that way it’s manageable and small. But that’s not life, life is messy.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

66. “I’m not a method guy. I can’t be bothered to have a method. I just want to be a part of a good movie and I can’t stand to be surrounded by morons.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

67. “It’s a very smart and heartfelt movie and that’s why, I think, we’re all drawn to it. We really showed up for this with this collective idea that it was really ambitious, but we felt we all really had something to gain from it.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

68. “I’m coming from a place of total strength and humility now.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

69. “You can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary, and really understand it, and come out a liberal.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

70. “And I think for a man whose native tongue is Spanish to be able to put together a phrase like ‘cultural genocide’ just speaks to how bright he is.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

71. “If you’re doing a drama that has some comedic elements you can’t forget that it’s primarily a very serious film that has some light relief.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

72. “I really don’t want to thank my wife because I could be bussing tables at the Daily Grill right now if not for her. Jesus, what a gig that’d be.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

73. “Smoking dope and smoking coke, you are rendered defenseless. The only way out of that hopeless state is intervention.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

74. “But I think Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang really got that thing where, if a movie reads really funny and then has some dramatic or violent or sinister stuff in it, you can’t forget that primarily it has to be even funnier than you read it or that other stuff doesn’t work.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

75. “I didn’t have an identity. It was manufactured. My identity now? It was written on the wall by ancient forces.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

76. “I had this bad-boy-from-New York vibe going, dressed like a punk rocker with spiky hair.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

77. “I’ve always just shown up and tried to figure out what’s for lunch and am I going to get to play some racquetball that night.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

78. “I’ve always felt like such an outsider in this industry. Because I’m so insane I guess.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

79. “I’ve always been a fella who put most of my eggs in one basket and then take a dump in the basket but I really don’t know.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

80. “You know, when you’re part of a comedic duo, you can take breaks. It’s kind of like having a partner that is good with a kid.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

81. “You have to give people something to actually write music so that you’re not just running your mouth all the time.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

82. “With a terrible script you hustle and try to make it better. But with a good script it can be trouble because you rest on your laurels, so to speak, you think it’s going to translate easily.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

83. “I remember when people said, “Man, that’s a powerful scene in the movie!” and I was like, “We just shot this thing before lunch, I don’t know, he tears a log apart, I said some words”.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

84. “When you have a good script you’re almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

85. “I was kind of like chasing my tail and trying to do the right thing, and was a little bit stupid. Or irresponsible, which is the same thing I guess. It’s just been really busy and I had a lot of great opportunities.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

86. “I felt like a fighter who was training for a title bout that had not been booked yet.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

87. “Acting is always a challenge.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

88. “Every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I’m in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing, and that’s the character.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

89. “Tofu is the root of all evil, and there’s only one thing that can change a man’s mind, and that’s a modified Uzi with an extra-long clip.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

90. “Pick a dysfunction and it’s a family problem.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

91. “I loved it, it’s such fun. I like that people are seeing it and then talking about it. Like when I took my son and his friends to see Napoleon Dynamite last year, we spent the next six weeks trying to explain it.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

92. “Nobody learns a German aria overnight, except Jared Harris.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

93. “I think I’ve been lucky, being my frequent appearances on Court TV have brought to me another level than just the actor guy.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

94. “It’s weird when one movie that’s connected to another doesn’t reference that movie at all.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

95. “I think a hero is someone who, if abroad or traveling, they go to the GOOP website to see what shops to go to, what restaurants to eat at, what clothes to buy, and they do that not fearlessly but in spite of their fear.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

96. “I’m not used to studios being ecstatic about we did and saying, “Please go do that again.””

— Robert Downey Jr.

97. “It’s become this really odd thing where even some of the folks who build the things that we wear for entertainment are contacted by DARPA-esque companies who are saying, “Yeah, we’re really doing that, and we want to talk to you.””

— Robert Downey Jr.

98. “It was a democracy in the truest and most frustrating and most rewarding sense of the word. Anybody could come in and say, “You know, I’m just not cool with that.” We’d be like, “Who’s that?” “Oh, I was just cleaning the trailers.” It was nuts.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

99. “I walk by studio heads and they actually look and put their hand out now, like maybe I should be on their radar.”

— Robert Downey Jr.

100. “The audience can feel the subtleties of the characters.”

— Robert Downey Jr.