John Malkovich Quotes

“I probably have more female friends than any man I've ever met. What I like about them is that almost always they're generally mentally tougher, and they're better listeners, and they're more capable of surviving things. And most of the women that I like have a haunted quality - they're sort of like women who live in a haunted house all by themselves.”

— John Malkovich

“I don't lose my temper very often now, and if I do, it's well deserved.”

— John Malkovich

“People always say life is short. I've never been convinced of that - mine seems to have a tendency to go on and on.”

— John Malkovich

“I am inspired by the appearance of a bohemian of the new millennium.”

— John Malkovich

“Some directors expect you to do everything; write, be producer, psychiatrist. Some just want you to die in a tragic accident during the shooting so they can get the insurance.”

— John Malkovich

“I don't care what other people think. I don't think it matters.”

— John Malkovich

“I'm more comfortable with whatever's wrong with me than my father was whenever he felt he failed or didn't measure up to the standard he set.”

— John Malkovich

If you're too smart it can limit you because you spend so much time thinking that you don't do anything.

— John Malkovich

“It's tough to figure out how do we compete in Europe and North America, when obviously a living wage for us is very different than a living wage in Indonesia.”

— John Malkovich

“I believe in humans.”

— John Malkovich

“The world is ruled by violence, or at least the imminent threat of violence. It always has been.”

— John Malkovich

I like to direct movies, but I don't like to goof around for eight years talking about it.

— John Malkovich

I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.

— John Malkovich

“I was never a fanatical movie person.”

— John Malkovich

“I'm not a very skeptical person.”

— John Malkovich

I find it hard to pre-plan every element of everything I do. It's not my thing.

— John Malkovich

“I still have a temper, I suppose.”

— John Malkovich

“I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not treating patients.”

— John Malkovich

“In New York in the Forties or Fifties, everybody's in a suit, an overcoat and a hat.”

— John Malkovich

Well, I like to have fun at work.

— John Malkovich

“I brought my first fall/winter line to New York, and it was confiscated by U.S. Customs. They asked, 'What is the value of this?' I said, 'I'm not so good with existential questions.'”

— John Malkovich

“I grew up in the Midwest, quite far from any ocean or any beach, a million miles. I think for kids who grew up where I did, the idea of California, surfing and beach life was so exotic and glamorous.”

— John Malkovich

“Sigmund Freud said we act out our own dreams, but if you are only an actor you are not acting out your own dream. You are simply participating in someone else's dream.”

— John Malkovich

“A dog that has rabies probably will do things it wouldn't do if it didn't have rabies. But that doesn't change the fact that it has rabies.”

— John Malkovich

“Of course it's trivial, but then most things are.”

— John Malkovich

I can see how, given a certain degree of sensitivities, proclivities and rage, I could have ended up differently.

— John Malkovich

“Every country has their problems.”

— John Malkovich

“I admire sensible, kind people. They're not often famous.”

— John Malkovich

“I don't have a saviour or a royal family.”

— John Malkovich

“I prefer to conduct my life based on how I treat people.”

— John Malkovich

“I'm not a control maniac.”

— John Malkovich

“Things are so much global and Americanised.”

— John Malkovich

“It never occurred to me to be an actor.”

— John Malkovich

Where women are concerned, the rule is never to go out with anyone better dressed than you.

— John Malkovich

“I don't mind what I play, really.”

— John Malkovich

I don't really go through a process, it goes through me.

— John Malkovich

“I mean, anything that money can be made off will never be a problem to make, no matter what it is.”

— John Malkovich

“I never really did a western western.”

— John Malkovich

“I only have two rules for my newly born daughter: she will dress well and never have sex.”

— John Malkovich

I wasn't really raised to be the type of person to have doubts.

— John Malkovich

My father was an exceptionally strong influence on me.

— John Malkovich

I have at times spoken with my peers and the head of the actors' union about why we're not paid when we appear in, say, a 'TMZ' production, but there seems to be no real interest in combatting it.

— John Malkovich

“I love Chicago, but in a lot of ways it's a disappointment. You can work there for years and years, and because you're in Chicago, you don't get the recognition. It has some of the best theater in the country, but when they shoot a movie there, they bring in all their actors.”

— John Malkovich

“I think I was born at a time when an American male had so many advantages and opportunities that weren't available to men before or after, just a very brief period.”

— John Malkovich

“My father could be very distancing. My clearest memory is of him squatting, watering plants for hours and hours at a time, completely silent. He was very self-contained; my mother was more outgoing and chatty and social. I'm certainly more like her.”

— John Malkovich

“I don't have a great intellect, and I can't compete with people who do. I feel certain things. And all I know, and all I can do, is what I feel.”

— John Malkovich

“I grew tired of religion some time not long after birth. I believe in people, I believe in humans, I believe in a car, but I don't believe something I can't have absolutely no evidence of for millenniums. And it's funny, people think analysis or psychiatry is mad, and they go to church ...”

— John Malkovich

“It's a little bit hard to have personal things subject to public scrutiny, and it's a pressure that other people aren't under, but then they're under a lot of pressures that we're not under.”

— John Malkovich

“All you have is the writer's imagination. You have a very limited time to take this imaginary person and bring the details of their life, as you perceive them, to life. You attempt to do to that as fully and as vibrantly as you can. It's depressing to read how much you've failed. And it's not even particularly instructive or necessary to read how you succeeded because in the end don't you have to judge that?”

— John Malkovich

“And if you say a word about this over the radio, the next wings you see will belong to the flies buzzing over your rotting corpse.”

— John Malkovich