Viggo Mortensen Quotes

There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, ever.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren't enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.

We all experience many freakish and unexpected events - you have to be open to suffering a little. The philosopher Schopenhauer talked about how out of the randomness, there is an apparent intention in the fate of an individual that can be glimpsed later on. When you are an old guy, you can look back, and maybe this rambling life has some through-line. Others can see it better sometimes. But when you glimpse it yourself, you see it more clearly than anyone.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realise how important it is to use the time I have.

To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It's just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.

I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile.

I have friends who I get along with who I know get very uncomfortable being alone, unless they're with people, talking all the time. Whether it's on the phone, or in person, they're never by themselves. Whereas I could be alone for months.

I like the detail work of telling a story in small pieces, as is done in movie-making, and also the long leap of faith needed to see a theatre performance through each night. Both require focus and self-discipline.

Freud was the son of a Jewish merchant who had to move his whole family to Vienna because he couldn't get work. He, as a boy, had to watch his father be mocked and abused on the street for being Jewish... You develop a thick skin and you develop a certain kind of wit to defend yourself.

As regards Hillary C;inton's foreign policy actions and the powerful vested interests she seems gleefully beholden to, including all the biggest players in the military-industrial complex, I feel that she would be no better an actor on the world stage than Trump and whatever coalition of managers he might cobble together.

It's hard not to get depressed when you pay attention to the world and how strangely and corrupt the people in it sometimes behave.

When I have a day off, I won't spend it at a Hollywood party. I'd rather be at home with paints and a blank canvas.

You should always do the things in life that are both interesting and make you afraid.

Like most people I can be lazy, so it's nice to have a goal or deadline or reason to work out. I feel better when I get to exercise, or when I'm outdoors. I like to hike, swim and run, and I love to play soccer.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them. If you allow yourself to be somewhat curious - and if you get into the habit of doing that - it's the first step to being open minded and realizing that your points of view aren't totally opposite.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them.

I've never been conscious of having any real career plan, and I do not have a wish-list of actors, directors, screenwriters, or cameramen I'm hoping to work with. Life, I feel, has a way of leading us to the right situations and people, or at least to interesting ones.

I want to see what the Green Party looks like. I think if people don't start voting what they feel, if that's something other than the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, then nothing's going to change. You need more political parties that actually have a chance.

I think that every person has many, many people inside of them. We change our personality depending on who we are talking to or what situation we are in.

I think every family is dysfunctional, and some manage to control it better than others.

I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go.

My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.

As Martin Luther King said, "Passively to participate in an unjust system is to accept that system and to participate in its evil."

I like stories that leave you wanting more, leave you wondering, but don't tell you everything.

You don't have to make something that people call art. Living is an artistic activity, there is an art to getting through the day.

Any nominations a movie gets helps to raise the level of curiosity in the public, so in that sense awards and nominations are important.

You know, real life doesn't just suddenly resolve itself. You have to keep working at it. Democracy, marriage, friendship. You can't just say she's my best friend. That's not a given, it's a process.

Photography, painting or poetry - those are just extensions of me, how I perceive things; they are my way of communicating.

If there's one thing I've learned from traveling, it's that it is definitely more important how you are than where you are. You can say, 'Oh, I hate X city, I hate that country, or I prefer this city,' but it's a little bit up to you to find some kind of happiness.

You do need to get lucky, no matter how talented you are.

It's easy to get depressed and think, "Well, what's the point?" But it's the same as, "Well, we're all going to die, so what's the point in brushing my teeth or even saying hello to anyone or obeying traffic lights." You can do that, but that's certainly not going to take you anywhere.

My goal is just to make movies, whether they're big or small, that I'd like to see 10 years from now.

The Black Lives Matter movement, the various Occupy movements in Spain and the rest of Europe, in this country, and elsewhere serve as an example of what can be done, and how strong the voices for positive change and truly democratic progress can be.

It is important to keep protesting, to keep forcing a conversation in the public arena. In any case, when you know what the right thing to do is, or that something must be said, it can be immoral and dangerous not to act.

Perceval Press a publishing house I founded in 2002 and it's still going strong. Strong for us means not so many books per year, but each one we very carefully design and print.

You know, real life doesn't just suddenly resolve itself. You have to keep working at it.

The money I earn from films means I can help the people I want to help - you can do a lot of good if you want to.

I prefer the smaller acting than big histrionics. It's about reacting and looks, which is often underestimated.

Here's where we are, this is what's happening. So do something, or get out of the kitchen.

I played Lucifer once, which is sort of a difficult character to research. I thought to myself, "We all have the potential to be selfish, to be cruel - at least to think evil thoughts, even if we don't ever act out on them. Even if we don't ever think we behave badly, we probably do more than we realize."

When there is conflict, it's good to step away, even for five minutes, because you could say terrible things that you can't take back, so it's best to walk away.

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.

You have a moral obligation to finish the job you said you would do.

When people say that entertainers should "know your place," they might as well say the same thing about plumbers and teachers and cab drivers. We all should be able to express our views.

In a lot of places in the United States and certainly even more places around the world, the image of the cowboy has become, for some people, a negative one. The word 'cowboy' implies a strong, stubborn individual whose individualism depends on pulling down other people's individualism.

In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.

In other words, I’m against cheating, greed, cruelty, racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, treason, and the seemingly limitless capacity for hypocrisy shown by Bush and his administration.

Travel is one of the best anti-war weapons that there are. I've been to Iran, and if you're there you see little kids, cops, old people, cemeteries. Once you see that, you can't say, 'Oh, Iran, let's bomb them.'

People like to pigeonhole you. It's easier.

You know, 'Viggo' is a pretty dorky name in Denmark. It's like 'Oswald' or something. It's a very old Scandinavian name, at least 1,000 years old.