Ben Stiller Quotes

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.

My parents used to throw great New Year's Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment.

People like to define you through what they've seen you do. There are aspects of my personality, I guess, that come through on-screen, but I don't sit around thinking, 'I've been a bumbling suitor all my life.'

Fashion is so over the top.

I don't devalue comedy as compared to drama. Not one bit.

I have a lot of nervous energy. Work is my best way of channelling that into something productive unless I want to wind up assaulting the postman or gardener.

Oh, you can milk just about anything with nipples.

Success doesn't necessarily mean happiness.

I know that I'm better as an actor when I'm working with a good actor. I think anytime you're working with a better actor, it makes you a better actor.

Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game!

I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is.

I'm just not a naturally cheery person. I'm naturally moody. I know that from people who spend a lot of time with me. People who spend a lot of time with me may not wish to spend a lot more time with me.

There's an old saying in Hollywood: It's not the length of your film, it's how you use it.

I think most politicians could take a dodgeball in the face.

Nobody makes me bleed my own blood - nobody!

I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.

I've had a very good career and I'm grateful that the public has had some level of acceptance and appreciation of my work.

God was showing off when he made you.

Jim Carrey, a comic genius, has a harder time overcoming the public's desire for him to be funny simply because he's so good at it.

I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines !

A eugoogoolizer...one who speaks at funerals...Or did you think I was too stupid to know what a eugoogooly was?

I think people will be curious to see what I can do as a dramatic actor.

Whatever talent I had, I'm sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.

I love New York. I was sad, depressed and incredibly moved by our fellow countrymen and what they've done. I wanted to give people a chance to see something funny, have a distraction.

I don't have a burning desire to be taken seriously as an actor. I don't have a master plan in that way.

It was a mixed blessing to have famous parents. It was tough to go to auditions and be bad, since I couldn't be anonymous.

There's always an element of fear that you need to work a lot until people get sick and tired of you or finally figure out that you're a fraud after all!

It's important that we came here, just to touch base here in this great country... When I was about 16 I came with my dad for a couple of weeks and had a great time and I've wanted to come back, it's been way too long. So, I'm very happy to be here and I want to come back longer with the rest of my family.

I was staying on [writer/director/actor] Eric Schaeffer's couch in New York, and he said, "I've got this movie [If Lucy Fell]. Can you do five days on it?" And I was like, "Yeah, anything. Twenty-four hours times five is 120 hours. Oh, great, I'll fill 120 hours of my life with something." So I did that and it was fun, and then I did Flirting with Disaster.

I don't think the public is dying to see me necessarily be funny all the time.

I enjoy the work I do in comedies. It's a valid test of your creative abilities.

I don't know what that weid fantasy is that makes people go, "Oh, you must have had a great childhood."

If you look at my eyes when I'm dancing, you'll see that glazed look.

Stiller was able to reach speeds of around 35 miles per hour, no small task for someone who had never longboarded before.

I don't think it's ever easy to be funny. I find it easy to amuse myself with a certain sort of cynical dark humor that tends toward the meaner side, like my character in Happy Gilmore. Those kinds of characters come easily to me.

I'm always willing to endure humiliation on behalf of my characters.

The cliches are that it's the most generic Starsky and Hutch plot you can find.

I would like to do more dramas when I find a good role that will allow me to politely upset people's expectations of me as a comic actor.

When I didn't have a family, I was much more of a workaholic. I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it's not fun, what's the point?

I was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn't going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting.

I'm not an expert on the Malaysian sense of humor.

I think this whole celebrity world is weird anyway. Weird and funny and kind of pathetic and yet so right for parody.

I have not been an easygoing guy. I think it's called bipolar manic depression. I've got a rich history of that in my family.

It's hard to maintain a sense of dignity in an audition. I have done so many auditions where I've put it out there and have been met with that kind of blank stare - "Great! Thanks! OK! Great work! Thanks for coming in!" At the door I'm thinking, 'What the hell am I doing with my life?'

You're freaked out that you're going to be having a child, and once you're looking after your daughter, it's the most beautiful thing in the world.

Well, this movie I've been working on for a while. I had the idea for the movie like twenty years ago when I was doing 'Empire of the Sun' in 1987 because at that time that's when all these Vietnam movies were being made and my friends and I were going on auditions for these Vietnam movies and my friends were getting them and going away to fake boot camps.

It's weird that people expect me to be funny. I find it a real burden when I'm expected to be humorous on talk shows.

You have to stay in character in between takes.

I think you never want to have to go into the scene having to improvise; you want to make sure its working on the page. But I do like to have the ability to try stuff just in the moment, to give it some sort of spontaneity.

I love history. I'm very interested by it and I think it's great to have a movie that brings it alive in a way. It's sort of that romanticized version of it.