Quotes from William Hurt

I like to work. I'm glad; I'm privileged to have work.

I generally try to think of what it is I want to express and then find a way of expressing it.

The point is that there are challenges within techniques. When you differentiate in technique, you challenge yourself; you ask yourself the same question in a new way.

My first cousin, by the way, on my father's mother side was John Marshall Harlan, who was a Supreme Court justice, as was his grandson. And I think a lot of my fight and my work to struggle for fairness and the techniques of theater and in subject matter probably stems in some way from some sense I have of his issues in life.

The funnel of deep feeling and profound satisfaction in life comes from the capacity to feel.

I want to prove a point. That point is, actors are artists, not narcissists necessarily.

I've made a couple of films that were a little too wide and non-specific - like 'The Doctor.'

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

I am not a famous person at home - I'm just a guy here. I'm a father, I'm a companion, I'm a human being. I am not a public figure in my house; I am not a celebrity. I am not a famous person to myself - I am just a guy.

The problem with Google is you have 360 degrees of omnidirectional information on a linear basis, but the algorithms for irony and ambiguity are not there. And those are the algorithms of wisdom.

The perfection in theater is that it's over the second it's done.

I am so thrilled by the privilege of life, and yet at the same time I know that I have to let it go.

I had great qualms about playing a man who was living. I've never met Walt McCandless, and I never will.

Rage with panache.

I haven't planned a reaction on anything... If you do, you've screwed up.

Woody Allen asked me to improv once. I said no.

Play is play, fun is fun, and work is work. They're different. I work hard; even if it's supposed to be fun for someone else, it's work for me.

People who have expertise or the luck to have rehearsal time with cameras have it over people who don't.

I'm never happier than when I'm with my family.

But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.

I was a science fiction junkie for a long time.

I don't put the truth in a cage. I try to find a way to release it.

I was held hostage and almost executed by a man who was robbing us in the middle of the night.

I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging.