Quotes from Sam Elliott

The two things that I wanted in my life were to have a movie career and to be married, to have a family. And it's an embarrassment of riches that I've got both.

My security comes from the fact that I've never done a job for money.

Nobody sets out to make a bad film - I shouldn't say 'nobody.' Some people certainly don't care.

I really never had any thought about being a legitimate actor, like a stage performer. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to do television and make movies.

Making movies is never going to get better than working on a Coen brothers project.

I don't want to be known as a sex symbol. There's a great stigma that goes with that tag. I want to be a Sam Elliott.

Hugh Grant is the main man. He's the number one romantic comedy man in the world.

Looking back on the long haul in my career, little films, big films, TV, the Western thing has been really good to me.

It seemed like whenever a Western was going to get made, it came my way.

You know, I know a lot of lifeguards. Both my parents were lifeguards at a lake in El Paso, Texas. I was a lifeguard in a swimming pool in Portland, Ore. And I have known and met and befriended a number of oceangoing lifeguards in California where I live.

I did beef ads for about eight years because I love the people in that industry, and there are a lot of people who make their living in the beef world. Ranchers, primarily.

Sometimes, you get the bear. Sometimes, the bear gets you.

I was single-minded on what I wanted to do since I was like nine or ten.

I think I might have been a more interesting actor, had more of a career earlier on, if I had more formal preparation. When I see something ten years later that I was in I think, 'Boy, would I love to do that over.'

I've done films over the years that basically no one saw. And I'm thankful that some of them haven't been seen.

I think anytime you can affect people in general, in a positive way, then you're a lucky individual.

I spent a lot of time growing up in Oregon after I left California. Spent a lot of time in the woods.

I'm a four star general in this thing, and you don't rise to the ranks of a four star general by hanging about the house being the perfect dad.

I think anytime you can affect people in general, in a positive way, then you're a lucky individual.

Hugh Grant is the main man. He's the number one romantic comedy man in the world.

The opportunity, number one, to work with Ang Lee is an amazing thing for me.

It's never going to get better than working opposite an actor like Jeff Bridges. That's as good as it gets. I don't even know what to refer to him as. He's just a great guy. He's iconic on his own merits.

I was never afraid of hard work.

My western heritage runs deep.