Best 34 quotes of John Hawkes on MyQuotes

As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending.

Even the small amount of infamy I have makes me uncomfortable - on a personal level and on a professional level.

For me and for I'm sure any actor, each role is a different challenge to prepare for in a different way.

For the last 20 years of my life, I've had the mantra to do amazing parts with amazing people in amazing projects, so I'm attracted to good story, writing and character and good people. That's what I'm always searching for and I don't think that's ever going to change.

I began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting and theme, and having once abandoned these familiar ways of thinking about fiction, totality of vision or structure was really all that remained.

I do all kinds of roles - nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho - and occasionally someone kind of normal. It's weird, when I lived in Austin I was always cast as pretty normal people. But when I moved to Los Angeles I was immediately branded a psycho

I do not feel an exile from America in any sense.

I don't have any training as an actor, but I guess I'm an intense pretender. When you read something over and over, it gets into you a little bit. You can't help but begin to feel it, even if you're a healthy person as I think I am

I don't mean to be highfalutin about it, but I try to limit my visibility.

I don't think there are in life, pure darkness or pure light. Everyone's got a little of everything.

I generally play strong people and scary people.

I had to go to Sunday school once or twice in my life, and that's where I commented someplace on hearing.

I have to be careful of what TV shows I choose, particularly ones that have commercials in them, because it's going to be a different kind of television show.

I'm just looking for the best story being told by the best people and the best part that I can find. If those things add up, I want to be a part of it whether it's a studio film or, more likely in that instance, an independent film.

I think we're all mysteries to ourselves.

It seems like every year Hollywood makes an attempt to retell the Manson story, and I just couldn't be less interested in it. It's not really our crowning achievement as a civilisation. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it just bores me.

It's hard to get concert tickets.

It's hard to tell whether the ship or airplane - they're all the same, I'm convinced - is male or female; it may shift back and forth.

It's nice to sometimes get things out of life, rather than stealing from other artists. I'm trying to steal from the real people.

It's probably odd for someone to read an interview where the interviewee is worried about exposure while they're talking in an interview.

I've never had any delusions about being a leading man, and it's not sour grapes to say that in the best films that I've always enjoyed, the cliched leading man type isn't a part of the picture.

I want people to believe me when I play a part and they are less apt to if they know a lot about me and have associations about me.

I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do

My fear now is of cliche, of complacency, of not being able to feel authenticity in myself and those around me.

People have said unkind things and you kind of have to, if you happen to read it, you have to just, you know, move on.

Starting in the mid-'80s, I played in a band called Meat Joy, and we made our own record, toured.

'The New York Times' thing... I think any actor would be thrilled to be profiled in that paper.

The only thing that exists is torment, lyricism, and the magnificence of language.

To be anywhere near an enormous ocean liner when you are just like a fish in the water is frightening.

When we lived in Juneau, Alaska, it was a town of about 7,000 people, and totally isolated; the only way to get to it was by ship.

You never really forget who you are. If you did, you'd need to seek some professional help

One and all they are driven by the twin engines of ignorance and willful barbarism. You nod, you also are familiar with these two powerful components of our national character, ignorance and willful barbarianism. Yes, everywhere you turn, and even among the most gifted of us, the most extensively educated, these two brute forces of motivation will eventually emerge. The essential information is always missing; sensitivity is a mere veil to self-concern. We are all secret encouragers of ignorance, at heart we are all willful barbarians.

The birds do not sing, clouds remain of rubber, glass, steel. A stone has lodged in the engine block, the process of rusting has begun. And then darkness, a cold wind, a shred of clothing fluttering where it is snagged on one of the doors which, quite unscathed, lies flat in the grass. And then daylight, changing temperature, a night of cold rain, the short-lived presence of a scavenging rodent. And despite all this chemistry of time, nothing has disturbed the essential integrity of our tableau of chaos, the point being that if design inevitably surrenders to debris, debris inevitably reveals its innate design.

You don't even have a cross," he said. His beloved was silent. "You don't even have any candles, no face of Christ, no tears. What can I say?" Then she began to murmur and he was astonished. "I'm sorry. I will believe in the eternity of souls, I am bereaved. I will see those places where death talks solemnly to the years, where the breakers roll over their sins and their regrets, where the valley of Heaven lies before the crag of immortality, and I will believe my mother has gained peace. I have lost her. Has anyone felt such terrible grief, known that for all earthly time the eyes shall never see, the heart never beat except with her shadow? What an unhappy loss, the candles are gutted, and the face wanes for this immortality. I have lost my mother." This was her only glimpse of Heaven, and she wept so much that he was afraid. Finally she held his hand. The two brothers fired the cannon at the burial.