Robert Downey, Jr. Quotes

Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn't mean you have to stay there.

Listen, smile, agree, then do whatever you were going to do anyway.

People never change because they are under threat or under duress. Never. They change because they see something that makes their life seem valuable enough to start moving toward a life worth living.

Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I'm not afraid of total failure because I don't think that will happen. I'm not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It's being in the middle that scares me.

People rise out of the ashes because, at some point, they are invested with a belief in the possibility of triumph over seemingly impossible odds.

I don't need an Iron Man suit. I'm already a weapon of mass seduction.

I know who I am. I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.

Im such a work in progress at the moment, its crazy, and life wants me on edge, I swear to you. But as long as I dont forget the past, Im cool. One must always be mindful, just like you might forget that old girlfriend who tried to slit your throat, but shes really still hot. If you remember the stitches more than you remember the pussy, youre going to be just fine.

I think that we all do heroic things, but hero is not a noun, it's a verb.

I just think it's good to be confident. If I'm not on my team why should anybody else be?

I know very little about acting. I'm just an incredibly gifted faker.

Nothing will serve you better than a strong work ethic. Nothing. And it's something that you can't teach. You have to be thrown into it, where you're going to sink or swim. It's amazing how self-correcting and how clarifying a good, hard, shitty job can be. Because at the end of the day, any profession I've seen anybody in, when you peer behind the curtains of Oh, wouldn't that be a great job? Wow, what an amazing thing, a philanthropic endeavor! it really just comes down to It's a f**king grind.

The lesson is that you can still make mistakes and be forgiven.

Worrying is like praying for something you don't want to happen.

I used to be so convinced that happiness was the goal, yet all those years I was chasing after it I was unhappy in the pursuit. Maybe the goal really should be a life that values honor, duty, good work, friends and family.

I've always felt that if you're not on your side, why should anyone else be. So I always encourage people to be confident, and sometime even a little falsely so, just so you can give yourself an opportunity.

I have a sense of destiny that you are led to the things you are supposed to do.

I think it's miraculous that anybody survives themselves.

Nothing's a break for me. Not even the breaks are breaks.

Growing up is something that you do your whole life. I want to always feel that I can be a kid if I want. Growing up has some negative connotations. Like, you're not supposed to roll around on the ground anymore. You're not supposed to make fun of yourself. You're not supposed to ride a bicycle. But I'm a Toys-R-Us kid.

The higher the stakes, the happier I am, the better I will be.

At the end of the day, anything I think I'm sacrificing I'm just giving up because it makes me feel better.

Do I want to be a hero to my son? No. I would like to be a very real human being. That's hard enough.

Discipline for me is about respect. It's not even about self-respect; it's about respect for life and all it offers.

The old saying is true, behind every good man theres an incredible woman.

I don't drink these days. I am allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs.

I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you've done.

I think you end up doing the stuff you were supposed to do at the time you were supposed to do it.

McDonald's being the official restaurant of the Olympics is like smoking being the official medicine of cancer.

To me, friendship means loving tolerance.

I need a lot of support... Life is really hard, and I don't see some active benevolent force out there. I see it as basically a really cool survival game. You get on the right side of the tracks, and you now are actually working with what some people would call magic.

If I was a Pokemon, I'll either be a Psyduck or a Jigglypuff.

But I will agree that I think that things happen with people in relationships, that you might have been able to enjoy Morocco, say, if you weren't getting out of a bad marriage. You know what I mean?

It's hard to get out of the barrel. It's slippery around the edges and people are happy to see you fall back in.

I think life changes every year. This is just a little more comfortable.

I make faces for cash and chicken.

I would say that among my many huge emotional miscalculations was my taking a film career for granted. It is the most awesome privilege to be able to use one's imagination and wit, physicality and musicality, conscious brain and unconscious instinct in the service of a work that has a chance to move and excite and amuse and delight people all over the world, including long after we're dead. What a noble calling! And I felt it was just there for me as a kind of given, some sort of inherited birthright-when in reality it's the most magnificent luxury.

There's somewhere you're supposed to go, and if you get quiet enough, you'll make it.

Give me a scotch, I'm starving.

With a terrible script you hustle and try to make it better. But with a good script it can be trouble because you rest on your laurels, so to speak, you think it's going to translate easily.

It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and I like the taste of metal

My old man had a philosophy: peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.

I don't like words coming out of a character's mouth that I adore because not only is he a little bit duplicitous but he's kind of practical in the way he thinks, and he thinks in terms of everyone's humanity and how quickly we can go against what we think we meant when we said it or what we believe or blah, blah, blah.

I'm a soldier who didn't know how nasty the battle was going to be, and now, I've got a purple heart and I'm back.

You have to let go of the things that are darling to you. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on the shape of the scene and the intention of what everyone else needs.

Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you're here or out in the world dealing with problems. It's second nature for me now. I don't even get to the point where there's a problem.

Look, even bad years are pretty good years I think.

I don't think I'm in any position to give anybody advice about anything.

There is unpanned gold in every soul you run into, no matter what walk of life they are from.

If I was a lawyer, I'd be my own best client.