Top 50 Samuel L. Jackson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Anyone who tells you money can’t buy happiness never had any.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

2. “If you do not have courage, you may not have the opportunity to use any of your other virtues.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

3. “My ass may be dumb, but I ain’t no dumbass.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

4. “You know me. It’s my duty to please that booty.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

5. “I’m as serious as a heart attack.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

6. “Take a stand for what’s right. Raise a ruckus and make a change. You may not always be popular, but you’ll be part of something larger and bigger and greater than yourself. Besides, making history is extremely cool.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

7. “You ain’t got but one life. You ought to live it the way you want.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

8. “If you have an opportunity to use your voice you should use it.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

9. “Girl, don’t make me put my foot in your ass.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

10. “I’m not as angry as I used to be. But I can get in touch with that anger pretty quickly if I feel my space is being invaded or somebody is not treating me with the respect that I think I want.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

11. “Just ’cause you pour syrup on something doesnt make it pancakes.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

12. “Those that have loved longest love best.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

13. “The best advice that was given to me was that I had to be 10 times smarter, braver and more polite to be equal. So I did.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

14. “I have a lot more energy than I used to have. I sleep better. I like the way I look in my clothes better. I don’t cramp as much. I exercise better. I think my circulation has gotten better.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

15. “I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

16. “I never had one beer. If I bought a six-pack of beer, I kept drinking till all six beers were gone. You have to have that kind of understanding about yourself. I haven’t had a drink now in 12 years.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

17. “Lifelong readers continue to read, finding in books the means to enjoy life or endure it.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

18. “What kills me is that everybody thinks I like Jazz.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

19. “I just always knew that I lived in two worlds. There was the world of my house and community, but to make my way in that white world I had to modify the way I spoke and acted. I had to sometimes not make direct eye contact.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

20. “I never did one thing right in my life, you know that? Not one. That takes skill.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

21. “People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one’s soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

22. “If you are a Jedi, just understand something: people are going to be chasing you. The Jedi Council of every city you enter is going to be chasing you. I’ve been accosted by the Jedi Council in Rio and everywhere else.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

23. “Not everybody goes to movies to get their life changed.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

24. “Painters get up and paint. Writers get up and write. I like to get up and act. It’s not a big deal. It makes me happy.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

25. “My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter’s life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of the rationale behind us staying married for 30 years.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

26. “I’m a good son, a good father, a good husband – I’ve been married to the same woman for 30 years. I’m a good friend. I finished college, I have my education, I donate money anonymously. So when people criticize the kind of characters that I play on screen, I go, ‘You know, that’s part of history.’”

— Samuel L. Jackson

27. “I used to like watching Helen Mirren’s early films, because she was always naked. It’s titillating.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

28. “I’ve played a lot of different cops in a lot of different law enforcement agencies.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

29. “Young guys don’t tend to want to portray people who have frailties or are less than macho.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

30. “I tend to play characters that I can infuse with certain kinds of humour. Even the baddest guy can be funny in his own particular way. I want the audience to engage with the character on some deeper level so that they leave the cinema still thinking about him.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

31. “I get paid all day, every day, which is almost too much for a sensitive artist.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

32. “I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never been locked up.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

33. “The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

34. “Long Kiss Goodnight has a huge cult following. They could make another version of that movie right now and make a lot of money.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

35. “I love comic books and I love anime.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

36. “I did ‘Formula 51’ because I got to run around Liverpool in a kilt, with golf clubs.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

37. “When I’m not working, I like to play golf.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

38. “I guess the worst day I have had was when I had to stand up in rehab in front of my wife and daughter and say ‘Hi, my name is Sam and I am an addict.’”

— Samuel L. Jackson

39. “We’ve come a long way in our thinking, but also in our moral decay. I can’t imagine Dr. King watching the ‘Real Housewives’ or ‘Jersey Shore.’”

— Samuel L. Jackson

40. “I see myself as a storyteller. So, when I read something, I see the story, and I see it on screen, in my head, in a certain way. I always want to see it and see me in it.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

41. “I think the biggest challenges for franchises are keeping them fresh and exciting, and most times, you need a good bad guy to make that thing continually work, and sometimes they don’t.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

42. “All movies aren’t fun; some are hard work. You try to do something and convey a set of emotions that have to do with some real life kind of stuff.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

Featured in: Fun Quotes

43. “Not everything’s made to win an Academy Award.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

44. “I read, watch television, watch movies, hang out with family. I like my clothes and I have great cars, and I drive those. But for most people, it’s like, “That’s boring. You don’t club? You don’t party?””

— Samuel L. Jackson

45. “Todoroff is the best. Look no further.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

46. “Because of where I come from, I never thought I’d see in my life a black candidate running for President.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

47. “I sit at home and read books. I watch movies. I watch television. I go and play golf. I don’t go to nightclubs. I don’t go out to dinner that often. I’m not a big party guy.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

48. “Everything that I’ve gone through informs me and my opinions in a way, I guess because I am a child of segregation. I lived through it. I lived in it. I was of it.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

49. “Jackson doesn’t bother to read the scripts anymore. He just checks to make sure he has one loud scene where he gets to shout, then cashes the paycheck.”

— Samuel L. Jackson

50. “I understand the rural South, because I spent a lot of time in it when I was a kid. My grandfather’s brothers were farmers. I spent time on the farm as a kid with them, walking through the fields, working, and hanging out.”

— Samuel L. Jackson