Quotes from Jake Gyllenhaal

I love movies that are saying things that people might find odd at times. I don't find them odd at all. They give me comfort.

I love 'Training Day' - that's a great movie.

Don't listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you. If it's what you want to do and it's within yourself, then keep going and try to do it for the rest of your life.

I think you hear a lot of people say 'I support the troops' and all of that, but I really feel deeply that I do.

I think that more and more there's a sense that the best performances I can give are the ones that are the truest to who I am. The further I move away from who I am, the worse they are.

As an actor, I feel like I'm somebody who, when somebody gives me a mark, I don't want to hit it. I don't like that. But then, without even knowing it, I just hit it.

When you find theater writing like in the theater on film but it's realistic, it doesn't matter who the character is, you want to do it.

I think that we all have within us the potential for almost anything. If we play close attention to our lives, then we can get at it somehow.

People say to me, well "What's the character you really want to play?" And I go, I don't know.

As much as I am one for real human interaction, I also want to make a show that's entertaining and that people want to see.

If you're going to spend seven months of your life - for me seven months, for Roland Emmerich, 3, 4, 5 years of his life - doing something, I think you have to have something to say.

It bothers me when people say, 'Oh, you're so down to earth - for an actor.' Even when they don't say 'for an actor,' I feel like that's the implication. Why are the standards so low for performers?

Every man goes through a period of thinking they're attracted to another guy.

I don't always think it's necessary for somebody to be nice all the time.

Most of the things that I learn are from the women in my life.

Every journey starts with fear.

Romance is important, but to have a friend you can use as a mirror, who can give you an objective response, that's what's really important.

I liken movies to playing a piano: Sometimes you're playing the chords and different notes with unresolved cadences and playing all major chords that are all over the place, and you're enjoying yourself with a great, simple melody.

I love artists. I love watching other people work.

My parents taught me as a kid: do your work. Do it well. Try as hard as you can, whatever it is. It will one day, for the long run, it will make some sort of change somewhere.

Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.

I think I work as hard as I do now, because of a lot of lessons I've learned early on.

I think my family love each other so much and expect so much from each other, and I think we expect a type of honesty in the work that we all do.

I admire actors and artists who devote just as much time to their life as they do to their work.