John Cusack quotes

All my romantic stories are a scrambled version of that first one.
-- John Cusack

#Stories #Firsts

It's supposed to feel good to throw a brick at the right people. There is a long tradition of naming and ridiculing and shaming and calling the villains what they are. Usually it was the artistocracy of the day and satire was the only way to speak truth to power.
-- John Cusack

#Long #People #Feel Good

Texas women have an amazing sense of purpose when they lose it. They're the best girls in the world - they're loyal and fun, but when they get mad, they'll try to kill you.
-- John Cusack

#Girl #Fun #Texas

I think it's very improtant and healthy to tell differnt stories than the corporatist narratives we are being asked to swallow hook, line and sinker.
-- John Cusack

#Thinking #Healthy #Hook

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
-- John Cusack

#Money #Careers #Want

When you see a culture where the intellectual architects of the invasion are not shamed for their behavior but rewarded within the mainstream media culture, black comedy, satire, absurdism is the only response.
-- John Cusack

#Media #Black #Intellectual

If you're looking at things with the right set of eyes, people are endlessly fascinating. And then, of course, if you look at it the wrong way, then the whole world is horrible and tedious and boring. That's the battle, really--to keep looking at the world in the right way.
-- John Cusack

#Eye #People #Battle

Once you have opened up prisoner interrogation, wiretapping, border patrol, jailing and the services of the military, when this has been turned into a for-profit business in this endless war, then we're in deep trouble.
-- John Cusack

#Military #War #Borders

There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration, which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America, but I remember as being a very, very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air; the punk rock movement made sense.
-- John Cusack

#Dark #America #Rocks

It never hurts to be involved in any political or activist organization. I can never see how participation would be a bad thing. The key is being true to what you participate with and who.
-- John Cusack

#Hurt #Keys #Organization

Maybe the absence of signs is a sign.
-- John Cusack

#Absence

Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers.
-- John Cusack

#Thinking #Safety #Soldier

Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable or am I miserable because listen to pop music?
-- John Cusack

#Funny Music #Miserable #Pops

I force people to have coffee with me, just because I don't trust that a friendship can be maintained without any other senses besides a computer or cellphone screen.
-- John Cusack

#Coffee #People #Computer

The minute you realize that your options are unlimited, things just start falling into place all around you.
-- John Cusack

#Fall #Realizing #Minutes

The reason bin Laden staggered the planes going into the towers was so every camera would be focused on the second tower when the plane hit. It was not only the murder, but the perpetual image of the horror that permeated into people's consciousness.
-- John Cusack

#People #Cameras #Would Be

The movies have got more corporate, they're making fewer movies in general, and those they are making are all $200-$300m tent-pole releases that eat up all the oxygen.
-- John Cusack

#Oxygen #Tents #Release

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack is dizzyingly brilliant. Mark Leyner is a hyperkinetic shaman, who flies the banner of rum and candy and writes like a one-eyed feral bandit. His new book is supremely original, delirious and synapse-shattering.
-- John Cusack

#Book #Writing #Sugar

The more you expose yourself as a celebrity, the less interesting you are to watch in your work, because if you're putting yourself out there all the time, you're not holding anything back.
-- John Cusack

#Interesting #Watches #Putting Yourself Out There

It's something we, guys, have all done. Made tapes for girls, trying to impress them, to meet them on a shared plane of aesthetics. Read them someone else's poetry because they do poetry better than you could do it, because you're too awkward to do it.
-- John Cusack

#Girl #Guy #Awkward

It's like those high-school yearbook photos that everyone would rather not see: Oh my God, look at that mullet hair. I have those photos too, but for me, they're, like, entire movies. And they show them on cable.
-- John Cusack

#School #Yearbook #Hair

If I'm in something that I think is kinda good, it stays with me like a fever dream for a long time afterwards. I don't recall the finished product so much as the feeling of making it.
-- John Cusack

#Dream #Thinking #Long

But, you know, I'm sorry, I think democracy requires participation. I mean, I don't want to proselytize but I do feel some sort of duty to participate in the process in some way other than just blindly getting behind a political party.
-- John Cusack

#Sorry #Party #Mean

The film is not a success until it makes money. It's only good when there's a dollar figure attached to the box office.
-- John Cusack

#Office #Dollars #Figure Skating

New York's like a boxing match. In Hollywood, it's like a Fellini movie or something.
-- John Cusack

#New York #Boxing #Hollywood

When applied to politics and taken to its extreme, kitsch is the mask of death. Fascism was all aesthetics. There was no core principle to it. There was no truth to it.
-- John Cusack

#Taken #Principles #Kitsch

With acting, you wanna see if you can get into trouble without knowing how you're gonna get out of it. It's like the exact opposite of war, where you need an exit strategy. When you're acting, you should get all the way into trouble with no exit strategy, and have the cameras rolling.
-- John Cusack

#War #Opposites #Knowing

I was never into the popular school or clique or anything. Then I started doing movies when I was in high school, so then I got popular. Then the girls paid attention to you who didn't before.
-- John Cusack

#Girl #School #Attention

Being on a movie set is like one long financial crisis.
-- John Cusack

#Long #Investing #Financial

I don't agonize over decisions as much these days. The criteria of what's important to me is clear. The insecurity that you feel, and the paranoia that you feel, have been around for a long time - you know it's a liar because it's been lying to you all along - every time you start something new.
-- John Cusack

#Liars #Lying #Long

I just love the process of working with other actors,
-- John Cusack

#Actors #Process

The situation in the film is like me going out to Venice Beach and talking to a homeless guy on the boardwalk, and 13 years later he's the president.
-- John Cusack

#Beach #Talking #Years

All the choices we make in our life are pointless.  There’s no escaping the inevitable.
-- John Cusack

#Escaping #Choices #Inevitable

I guess maybe I'm idealistic.
-- John Cusack

Did you know that the word person comes from the Latin word persona, which means mask? So maybe being human means we invite spectators to ponder what lies behind. Each of us will be composed of a variety of masks, and if we can see behind the mask, we would get a burst of clarity. And if that flame was bright enough, that's when we fall in love.
-- John Cusack

#Falling In Love #Lying #Latin

Every role you do is kind of a side of yourself. That's why they give you the part.
-- John Cusack

#Giving #Roles #Sides

I don't tend to think in terms of a moral authority - be a good boy, do good things - more in terms of what feels right.
-- John Cusack

#Boys #Thinking #Moral

The elderly have so much to offer. They're our link with history.
-- John Cusack

#Elderly #Links #Aging

My job is to just express something that I want to express. And if I'm ahead or behind the curve, that's for others to decide.
-- John Cusack

#Jobs #Curves #Want

Hopefully as you get older you get more selfless. That would be probably a good goal. I don't know if we do, though.
-- John Cusack

#Goal #Selfless #Would Be

Well, any time you do anything good, it's man versus himself, right? That's the art, the challenge.
-- John Cusack

#Art #Men #Challenges

The ages two to 15 I spent at different stages of shortness. I didn't become a tall person until I was 16.
-- John Cusack

#Two #Age #Different

People try to keep their past, like kind of holding on to their past. Every Springsteen song talks about that.
-- John Cusack

#Song #Past #People

If you wanna give me an award, I'll take it. Just don't make me go to the party afterwards.
-- John Cusack

#Party #Awards #Giving

I try not to dwell on the past. I'm not a big go-back-and-try-to-relive-your-past kinda person.
-- John Cusack

#Past #Trying #Bigs

I remember the '80s being about the Cold War and Reagan and the homeless problem and AIDS. To me, it was kind of a dark, depressing time.
-- John Cusack

#Depressing #War #Dark

It's a very frightening time when something as basic as due process is seen as somehow radical.
-- John Cusack

#Process #Radical #Due Process

If you're going to get into social criticism with absurdity and satire, you can't be politically correct when you do that.
-- John Cusack

#Criticism #Satire #Social

Hitler was so modern, in that he was obsessed with being famous. He was caught up with this rush to be have achieved greatness before turning 30.
-- John Cusack

#Greatness #Turning 30 #Obsession

You can only really judge yourself in comparison to other people. How bad you are, but you're not as bad as someone else. So it's degrees of losing.
-- John Cusack

#People #Judging #Degrees

I was raised Irish Catholic, but I don't consider myself Irish Catholic: I consider myself me, an American.
-- John Cusack

#Catholic #Raised

There are some good people. But a good chunk of them will lie for no reason at all - it'll be ten o'clock and they'll tell you it's nine. You're looking at the clock and you can't even fathom why they're lying. They just lie because that's what they do.
-- John Cusack

#Lying #People #Nine

A lot of people are not meant to be together.
-- John Cusack

#People #Together #Meant To Be Together

I think when you get to the point where you don't need to be in love, then you could be in love. You have to just be OK with yourself-and that's a long process.
-- John Cusack

#Love You #Thinking #Long

Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess.
-- John Cusack

#People #Actors #Chemistry

Death is a billion-dollar business. They can't even pass a law where it takes seven days to get a gun. Why don't you have to go through the same kind of screening you do to get a driver's license? It's totally insane.
-- John Cusack

#Gun #Law #Insane

I was raised Catholic until I was old enough to say no.
-- John Cusack

#Catholic #Enough #Raised

Any time you stop looking at evil as a black and white thing, it's helpful. So the fact that there won't be any obligatory Islamic terrorist stereotypes in movies any more, that'd be helpful.
-- John Cusack

#Islamic #Black And White #Evil

If people are constantly reading about you, and you're overexposed, they've got no reason to go see your movies. Also, it's not pleasant or nice to have your privacy invaded.
-- John Cusack

#Nice #Reading #People

Well, acting itself is a form of rebellion, always. Getting up there in front of people, telling stories - you're kind of going against the grain to begin with, wanting to do that, don't you think? Why else would you do it? Except maybe as kind of a way to affirm your very existence.
-- John Cusack

#Thinking #People #Acting

But no, I don't really like romantic comedies, so I don't really care. I never go see 'em.
-- John Cusack

#Ems #Care #Comedy

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.
-- John Cusack

#Cutting #Needs #Action

I have a bit of a rebellious nature.
-- John Cusack

#Rebellious

I like the George Romero films, which were really great, social satire movies; really twisted.
-- John Cusack

#Film #Twisted #Satire

I love these movies where it's just about the film. You don't have my face on the poster. It's all about the movie. I like that.
-- John Cusack

#Faces #Film #Posters

I read Noam Chomsky. I like some of Gore Vidal's stuff.
-- John Cusack

#Stuff

I was a teen star. That's disgusting enough.
-- John Cusack

#Stars #Teenager #Enough

I was never interested in being an overly public person.
-- John Cusack

#Persons

I've seen the people who talk about their love lives in print invariably have doomed relationships with the person they're talking about.
-- John Cusack

#Love Life #Fate #Talking

Acting can be pretty challenging. I can't say making a romantic comedy is challenging, but to do anything well, you have to put yourself into it.
-- John Cusack

#Challenges #Acting #Comedy

It seems to me that one thing people do over and over again is try to figure out how to get married, stay married, fall in love, how to rekindle all this stuff. It seems to me to be a pretty eternal theme so I don't know if you can get typecast from making movies about men relating to women. It seems to be what is going on on the planet a lot.
-- John Cusack

#Falling In Love #Men #People

If you're a movie star, there's a cycle you go through: adoration, adulation, you're used, and then you're discarded. And it happens again and again, always in that sequence.
-- John Cusack

#Stars #Used #Adoration

I'm definitely nostalgic about the music of my youth; The Clash and Fishbone and that whole music scene. I still have all that music to this day. There was some great music going on in the late 70s and 80s.
-- John Cusack

#Youth #Great Music #Nostalgic

I wanted to just be a filmmaker, and I thought I wanted to do all the aspects, and it seemed like as a producer was the best way to do it, because I could have... You never have control on a movie, but you have as much control as you can.
-- John Cusack

#Way #Aspect #Producers

I was only in one of the John Hughes films, and I never saw the other ones. I didn't understand them. I kept hearing a really hip 40-year-old person talking in teenagers' mouths.
-- John Cusack

#Teenager #Talking #Years

I remember once acting really cool on a bus with this girl named Stephanie. When I got home, I realized that I had a really big zit on my forehead. If you have acne problems, you really shouldn't be acting like Don Juan.
-- John Cusack

#Girl #Home #Acting

I kept saying that I'd never live in L.A., and I didn't think I would. But that's where the work is, and I ended up making a lot of friends there, and my old friends moved out to Los Angeles too. And also, I think when you're famous, its hard to live in a small town.
-- John Cusack

#Thinking #Old Friends #Towns

Getting trapped back in the '80s, it's almost like a comic nightmare, which for me is a very real nightmare. Every time I flip through the cable, I have flashbacks.
-- John Cusack

#Real #Flip #Nightmare

A lot of powerful people in Washington may think it's a crazy-leftist-fringe position to think the intellectual authors of a torture regime should be investigated and prosecuted.
-- John Cusack

#Powerful #Crazy #Thinking

I don't agonize over decisions as much these days. The criteria of what's important to me is clear.
-- John Cusack

#Decision #Important #Criteria