Best 186 quotes of Viggo Mortensen on MyQuotes

A little recognition is not a bad thing because it means people appreciate your work. The only problem is when you can't walk down the street or have a meal without people looking at you. I want to be the one looking at people.

A lot of people can forget about you in Los Angeles.

A lot of times, movies that are in the top 10 lists or maybe even win Baftas or Oscars, you then watch them a year later and you go, 'Maybe it wasn't so great.'

America is an empire in decay. But we don't have to lash out and do damage on the way down. We can reverse some of the damage we've done. It's possible.

Any nominations a movie gets helps to raise the level of curiosity in the public, so in that sense awards and nominations are important.

Anyone can identify with those moments in life where circumstances or people inform us that we've strayed from the path of our better nature and intentions. We know what that's like, and we resist it - so as not to feel like we're bad people.

As a kid I read Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and a few others. As an adult have admired Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and notebooks.

As Aragorn said at Helm's Deep, "There is always hope.

As [John] Tolkien himself said, the story [Lord of the Ring ] is not allegorical. He said so when people tried to make analogies to World War II and the fight against Hitler and his fascist coalition.

As Martin Luther King said, "Passively to participate in an unjust system is to accept that system and to participate in its evil.

As regards Hillary C;inton's foreign policy actions and the powerful vested interests she seems gleefully beholden to, including all the biggest players in the military-industrial complex, I feel that she would be no better an actor on the world stage than Trump and whatever coalition of managers he might cobble together.

As you get older, you get stuck in your ways; just as you become stiffer physically, you also become stiffer mentally and more narrow-minded unless you make a conscious effort to keep yourself flexible.

At the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century in Austria, there was a lot of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism in Austria was much more pervasive than in Germany. And Austrians took to Nazi ideas and anti-Semitism much more readily than Germans did, really.

Awards for arts, where you make comparisons, don't make much sense.

Because of the internet, satellite TV, and the digital world, you can stay in touch, you can learn about other people from a young age.

Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them. If you allow yourself to be somewhat curious - and if you get into the habit of doing that - it's the first step to being open minded and realizing that your points of view aren't totally opposite.

Can you join, ask sincerely for affection without sweaty hand of expectation, understanding and accepting if it never is given?

[Captain Fantastic] it's a great story. It's one of the better scripts I've read, ever, as far as being great from beginning to end. It handles a variety of characters. You have six children who all stand on their own, they're all individuals. And it touches on a very real issue, which is the lack of cohesion and communication in America right now.

Captain Fantastic touches on that [division]. You meet this family that lives off the grid in the woods and you go, "Oh, it's some kind of liberal utopian fantasy. The enemy is gonna be all these conservative types that they'll probably run into, and that's going to be the story.

Each time I make a movie, it's like a paid scholarship to a different university course.

Even the implication that The Lord of the Rings is a mythic story about Western, white supremacy - regardless of the political leanings of anyone who tries to make that case - is a load of self-justifying, destructive horseshit.

Every once in a while, someone would call me a foreigner or a Yankee, or whatever. In the United States, someone might say something, like how kids do, to point out that you're different. That would come as a surprise to me. As you get old, you either get defensive about it or you accept it and you reach out, because you realize the world's full of people like that.

Every year I hear people complain that the quality of screenplays and movies is declining. In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.

Freud was the son of a Jewish merchant who had to move his whole family to Vienna because he couldn't get work. He, as a boy, had to watch his father be mocked and abused on the street for being Jewish... You develop a thick skin and you develop a certain kind of wit to defend yourself.

Further devastation of the air, land and sea is obviously a very real possibility, unless the attitudes of politicians and all who irresponsibly exploit our natural resources change significantly in the very near future and all collaborate and sacrifice for the good of the planet.

Having a mixed background and feeling a little bit like a fish out of water in most places can be a benefit.

I campaigned for [Dennis] Kucinich in 2008. I continue to be in touch with him and I really admire him. I think he's very brave and honest - unusually so for a U.S. politician.

I'd like to, when it's all said and done, say that I have at least a few stories that I feel proud of.

I don't have a BlackBerry or whatever you call it. And there is something to be said for being isolated and out of phone range, because you can fall into a habit to such a degree that you don't even realise that you've lost something: silence.

I don't think Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell fear competition from me in their arena.

I don't think special attention should be given to an actor or a singer or a baseball player or a soccer player more than anyone else, but they do have an opinion like anyone else.

I don't think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you're president.

If I can get a day to myself, I won't answer the phone, I'll read or go for a walk. Simple, basic things. People think there's always time to do that but there isn't. Life is short.

If in my twenties I'd gotten one of the two-dozen roles that I did screen tests for and almost got, I think I would have become bored with the awards circuit, the whole hype machine.

If there's one thing I've learned from traveling, it's that it is definitely more important how you are than where you are. You can say, 'Oh, I hate X city, I hate that country, or I prefer this city,' but it's a little bit up to you to find some kind of happiness.

If you daren't enter the forest, or cannot find it, then perhaps you might find one tree, or a place where a tree could be, and just stop for a quiet moment to see what happens.

If you don't find some way to discuss what's going on inside you, it can come out in other ways that are self-destructive.

If you're not optimistic on some level, then you've given up.

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

If you tell the story emotionally in a truthful way, then you start naturally looking at the landscape and thinking "Wow, we have to watch out.

Ignorance breeds antipathy. Until I got to know how computers worked, I didn't want anything to do with them. I said, 'Well, why do I need them? I write letters.' Which I still do.

I grew up with horses when I was a kid in Argentina. I like them. I respect them. I'm careful around them. You never know what they're going to do. They're endlessly interesting. I've had some good acting partners that were horses over the years.

I hate divers, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who might be the greatest athlete in the sport, but he's a big baby. If things are going well he's great, but when things are going badly it's the ref's fault, it's his teammates' fault.

I have a multicultural background, so I tend to have an open mind about things, and I find other cultures interesting.

I have a roof over my head. I had a breakfast, and a lot of people in the world can't say that. I'm not going to complain about being interviewed.

I have a publishing company of books by me and books of others. It drew people to poetry readings and photo exhibitions and painting exhibitions that I've been doing for years before that.

I have a work ethic. If I say I'm going to do something, I do it.

I have friends who I get along with who I know get very uncomfortable being alone, unless they're with people, talking all the time. Whether it's on the phone, or in person, they're never by themselves. Whereas I could be alone for months.