Tommy Lee Jones

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If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.
- Tommy Lee Jones
Collection: Work
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If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.
- Tommy Lee Jones
Collection: Patriotism
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All my life I've had the privilege to make my living with my imagination, and the most important thing has been to see my creative life grow. I was educated to do that and have lived accordingly.
- Tommy Lee Jones
Collection: Imagination
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I don't think I would describe my sense of humor. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd do.
- Tommy Lee Jones
Collection: Humor
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I do not have a sense of humor of any recognizable sort.
- Tommy Lee Jones
Collection: Humor
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I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival.
- Tommy Lee Jones
Collection: Faith
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In the political world, the only position I have is voter. I'm not a spokesman for anything.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Partnerships are good engines for narrative.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I haven't had a lot of comedy come my way as a performer.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't have a favorite genre. I think 'genre' is a literary term. I don't have a favorite kind or type of movie. I like the ones that are good.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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There's an undeniable tradition of sexism in this country that ties into the move westward by people of European descent and different ways of looking at Manifest Destiny on the west side of the Mississippi River.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I'm an introspective guy when there's money in it.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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In the course of American history, great steps are taken by ordinary people, and ordinary people are not perfect.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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No director wants to be directed, but no good director... would shy away from the good ideas of others.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I always told my children when they whined... Only the boring are bored.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't get it. If you're saying, Tommy Lee, you don't fit the image of the East Coast, social elitist wealthy people who comprise Harvard, the only thing I can say is you have no idea what comprises Harvard.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Al Gore has been one of my closest friends since the day we met, on the first day of college, 35 years ago.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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As it turns out, my grandmother, my mother, my wife, and my daughter are all women, and I like those people. I'm concerned about the issues that they face in their lives. So I'm a feminist, but that's not all I am.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I've worked with more than 50 directors ,and I've paid attention since day one. That's pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I've seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving. You just leave the bad part out.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I'm kind of pleased with myself that I've got a tailor on Savile Row. I'm 68 years old. I deserve it.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't fight anybody anytime or anywhere.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I look upon pride as a sin.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't play just villains. I like to have parts that are not simply villains.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I have nothing against interviews. I don't pursue them. When people I work for deem it appropriate, I'm perfectly willing to serve.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I think any stereotyping is too much.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Human beings are glorious and preposterous characters.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I'm always happy to have a job.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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As an actor to watch an audience of people howl together in a single mind as a result of work you've done together with friends is a privilege.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I haven't a clue if there is life on other planets but I'd be charmed if we found a unicellular organism on Mars. It would change our whole concept of life on Earth.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't direct movies for a living.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I know a lot of cowboys and I've done a little work on ranches with cattle, and those people become your friends, and keep their word.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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No, I don't think about the myth of the West. It's not the kind of thinking I do. That's more suited to people who live in big towns on the West Coast or East Coast, people who stay under a roof, in a room, all the time.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I want to photograph what I see and put it in a dramatic context. I'm an actor and a writer, and I want to tell these stories and present these shapes, colors and movements as I see them, as I see them serve a narrative. As I see that narrative serve an audience. That's what I want to do.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I love cinema.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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My home town is very small and very remote and we don't have a movie house.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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It's no fun to be a struggling young actor. It's a desperate thing, no way to be happy. If you have any alternative, you should take it.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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You can't instruct an audience to laugh, but what you can do is read well and understand the spirit and subtleties, if there are any, in the dialogue.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't analyze things like titles.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I personally don't live a nihilistic life, I don't have any use for it.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I don't do anything that is not fun. I just don't do it.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I'm a hedonist.
- Tommy Lee Jones
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I've made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!
- Tommy Lee Jones