Tom Hanks Quotes

Growing up in northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland, we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the Sierras the next day.

We are still in the position of waking up and having a choice. Do I make the world better today somehow, or do I not bother?

And I'm not apolitical - I'm very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it's nobody's business unless you're over at my house having dinner.

'Larry Crowne' is about as bummed out a human being as one can be when he loses his job. What he is able to enjoy is something that may not be available to everybody. But it's about the value of being willing to get and willing to give good advice.

Movie-making is telling a story with the best technology at your disposal.

Never give up because you never know what the tide will bring in the next day.

If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great.

It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together ... and I knew it.

The only way you can truly control how you are seen is by being honest all the time.

I think it's better to feel good than to look good.

A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.

If things were easy to find, they wouldn’t be worth finding.

Even the simplest choice can make a jaw-dropping difference in our world.

In the 1998 Oscars, I found myself in the bathroom in a stall, next to Tom Selleck. So I leaned over and I said ‘looks like we’re a couple of peeing Toms.’ His angry silence is something I’ll never forget.

The desert, when the sun comes up...I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.

I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

Tweeting is like sending out cool telegrams to your friends once a week.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.

The "Toy Story" films accomplish what timeless classics aim for - innocent characters who face an endless trail of adventures.

Help publicly. Help privately. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help, and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

Repertory theater is all about being part of the whole, one of the many colors in this vast palette.

Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

If you can feel like a good man in your 40s, you can feel like a better man in your 50s, a Superman in your 60s, and maybe a Spider-Man in your 70s.

A story has the opportunity to enlighten us, because as we connect the extraordinary moments on film with the ordinary moments of our lives, we ask ourselves, "What am I going to do the next time I'm scared? What would it be like to say goodbye to my family for the last time?"

Mama always said, dying was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't.

I will entertain anything; it doesn't matter. You know, it's not obviously about the price, it's not about who, it's kind of about when and what. It's material, that's all.

Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.

The average movie set is the least political arena on Earth. Nobody bothers talking about politics because, one, we all love the job so much. You don't talk about current events. You talk about old show business stories and whether or not there's gonna be French onion dip at the craft services table that day.

I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope... I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. Im back... Because now i know what I have to do now. I have to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

You don't necessarily go in to talk to the person to try to find some secret key to the lock.

It's not a mid-life crisis. It's a mid-life disaster. A mid-life crisis is when you wake up with everything and you go "I have everything but I'm still unhappy."

There's no substitute for a great love who says, 'No matter what's wrong with you, you're welcome at this table.'

Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are.

Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there's less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what's the fun in eating anything you want to?

If there are nine guys auditioning and they're all gorgeous, I have an advantage, because gorgeous guys are a dime a dozen. But if they need someone else - like a goofy guy with bad hair who is just okay - then that's me. And finally, the other 2 percent who audition are geniuses that I could never touch.

The year I was born, 1956, was the peak year for babies being born, and there are more people essentially our age than anybody else. We could crush these new generations if we decided too.

Even if a story has nothing to do with my life, if I can recognise something of myself in the character and think, 'Oh yeah, that's what I'd do...' yeah, that's what I look for.

Saying no to something is actually much more powerful than saying yes.

I understand the concept of optimism. But I think with me what you get is a lack of cynicism.

I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.

Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are.

The reason most of us go to the movies is to be involved in someone else's moral dilemma.

Help, and you will make a huge impact in the life of the street, the town, the country and our planet. If only one out of four of each one hundred of you choose to help on any given day, in any given cause, incredible things will happen in the world you live in.

College isn't necessary for everybody and it's only from what you put into it what you go there for.

E-mail is far more convenient than the telephone, as far as I'm concerned. I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.

It's always a combination of physics and poetry that I find inspiring. It's hard to wrap your head around things like the Hubble scope.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

My wife and I, we met making a movie. This is not just our job, it's our life. It's what we do naturally whether we're working together or not.

I've made quite a number of movies like Castaway and a few others where I'm the only guy in the movie and the only place to be is right next to the camera in costume ready to go in order to get it. The years, and more specifically probably the four months prior to beginning shooting, is where the big preparation is that the director does because I knew we were going to get on the set. And the good news is, if you're the boss, if it ain't good, you don't use it. You just cut it out.