Quotes from Kevin Costner

I'm a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first casualty in life - people seem to give them up, quicker than anything, for a 'reality.

If developing ties to this world and exercising love and compassion are not the very point of us -- I cannot presume to know -- then we are at least better occupied in this way, I feel, than with the riddles of other worlds, which only prove impossible for us to solve and unhealthy even to ponder.

You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted.

I know I have this level of celebrity, of fame, international, national, whatever you want to call it, but it's a pretty surreal thing to think sometimes that you're in the middle of another famous person's life and you think to yourself, 'How the hell did I get famous? What is this some weird club that we're in?'

I'm a pretty convenient foil for a lot of people.

There are a lot of things that come to bear on movies now that I don't think are good for movies. They're trying to appeal to the biggest demographic and, when they do that, you sometimes flatten out.

Field of Dreams is probably our generation's It's A Wonderful Life.

If you don't understand your limitations you won't achieve much in your life.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

You have to try to dismiss the loudness of cynicism. It's certainly going to come.

If you're going to tear down a hero, you should never forget that you're tearing down someone else's hero. You're tearing down somebody else's son. You might have to face her one day.

I want to be a part of something, and when we define movies now based on how they do on the weekend. We live in a society of "thumbs up, thumbs down."

I actually play sports better when I'm mad. Some players don't play better when they're mad. They lose their sense of where they're at. I have a tendency to do better when I'm under pressure.

There's nothing more noble than a father and mother making an opportunity for their child, knowing that their life is gonna be hard. There's something incredibly heroic about that.

It's such a cool thing in life to get what it is you want. Most of the time we don't, but occasionally we do.

I'm getting those familiar feelings, and I'm just going to enjoy the process of getting to know someone again.

We're at a point in history where everyone needs to pay attention to politics. Too much is at stake for us to be apathetic.

I feel like I've been able to live a dream life, but my view of things is absolutely inside behavior about how I behave and how I count on other people behaving.

I work for the public, for the people who are paying to go to the cinema, rather than for the critics.

President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation, but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.

You know, what if everybody's wrong in life? And so you have to live your life yourself.

I want to live forever, and I know I won't. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm only afraid of one thing: not being able to raise my kids.

Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get.

I don't think I ever take huge risks, though I'm not scared of doing so.