Dennis Quaid Quotations

In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It's really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think.

Certainly I'm a Christian first and foremost. But I do believe in religious tolerance and finding the commonality between all of us. I think that's how we're all going to come together.

It's hard for two actors to be together. Take the traveling, for instance. It winds up being a long distance relationship, all the time, because one's working here and one's working there, or one's staying at home and one's off someplace else.

I didn't play football in school, but I've been a fan of football all my life. I have a fair understanding of it. Doing movies about it really helps because you know what makes them work and what doesn't.

When you break up, your whole identity is shattered. It's like death.

I always want to find the best burger in town.

Golf is meaningless, but it means so much.

In my early teen years, I wanted to become a vet. That was my plan. I worked as a veterinarian's assistant for a couple of summers.

Before I was an actor, I was never able to hold a job for more than 3 months for some reason. It just wouldn't hold my interest, so there was some way that I wound up quitting or getting fired from it. But being an actor is perfect, because movies usually take about three months to shoot. Then it's over and they say, 'Hey, great job!'

'Legion' was a lot of fun to shoot. It was a real unique apocalypse scenario that takes place in a diner out in the desert. Very much like a drive-in B-movie, but in a good way.

A lot of people that I started out with, I don't know where they are. I guess it takes tenacity to still be doing this, and luck, but I've been very blessed.

Athletes are sort of part of the community at large. They have to be dedicated to what they do, and go through lots of peaks and valleys. And there's a lot of training that goes into their careers. It's a struggle. Very dramatic.

I learned to surf for 'Soul Surfer.' Surfing is like golf: You're always battling, and it keeps knocking you down. There are a lot of wipeouts. But when you stay with it and catch that wave, you really taste it. It's magic.

Jesus himself talked about prayer and meditation. Anything that brings you closer to the Lord, what's wrong with that?

I was a really avid bowler when I was a teenager. I had about a 210-220 average. I had blisters on my fingers.

If you're going to stick around in this business, you have to have the ability to reinvent yourself, whether consciously or unconsciously.

I can't hit a ball more than 200 yards. I have no butt. You need a butt if you're going to hit a golf ball.

Families need a spiritual bond with one another and with God. God is the only way you're going to make it in life, the glue that holds everything together.

I grew up in Houston, and I remember we had separate drinking fountains, and black people sat in the balcony of the theater... We had an African-American housekeeper growing up who was really like my second mother. I thought it was silly - hatred just because of the color of somebody's skin.

I guess I could say I'm an actor, which I am, but that sounds like I'm putting down being a movie star, which, let's face it, is what I've become to many people. For myself, I'm a guy who was very insecure from about age 14 until the day I hit my 30th birthday.

I spent a weekend in the White House with President Clinton, back in '99, I guess. We played golf and just hung out and talked on many subjects. I saw him several times subsequently in L.A. He's the smartest man I ever met, a great politician. Everybody was star struck around him.

There are three things being a celebrity is good for: raising money for charity, dinner reservations and tee times.

What I find is that we're all human beings and that it's all very similar, what we believe. At the bottom, there's really not that much difference between Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We all worship God.

I want to work with great people. Great people really make you better.

I found golf late in life, in 1990. I took some lessons and struggled. Then one day, I hit a drive that was so crisp and clean, with no vibration. There's no feeling like it. I was hooked.

Going to the golf course every day for work? That's a good job.

When I was in my mid-20s, I traveled a lot around the world, and the question I had for everyone I talked to was, 'What is your conception of God?' I found that everybody basically felt the same: God is within and without. He's in everything.

When I choose a movie, I'll ask myself: 'Is this a movie I want to see?'

There's no way that I could do a 9 to 5 job. There's no way. I was not cut out for that. You come in and you work for three months on the one job. They say, 'Great,' you know, and you're on to the next one - and you never even got fired. It's wonderful.

My real-life athletic career was not very much. I played Little League baseball.

I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way.

I really want to see the Cubs in the World Series. I really do.

I used to eat a lot of fish, but I've been shying away from it because of the mercury thing. I eat more beef and chicken now.

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I grew up in Houston. Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut.

I'd love to do a golf movie. I turned down Don Johnson's role in 'Tin Cup.' I regret that.

I'm an idol of cinema? Oh, wow.

I've always considered myself a character actor. That's the way I was trained, really.

I've done so many movies that when I see them I don't really watch them.

I love being a dad. Basically it's the most gratifying, rewarding relationship in life. But, at the same time, it certainly is the most challenging.

I have a resistance to change in things that I feel comfortable with and that I'm used to.

I love being a dad, and I'm good at it. Kids teach you about life, like how not to focus on yourself so much.

I would like my kids to follow their bliss.

Everybody just wants to be famous first, and then maybe learn how to act.

For many years, I was obsessed about what I was eating, how many calories it had, and how much exercise I'd have to do.

I could never hold a job for more than three months, which works out well because that's how long a movie shoots.

I directed a movie back in the '90s which had calf roping in it, and I got into it quite a bit back then.

I have always done my own stunts, and I have been in hundreds of fights in films, but I have never been in a fist fight outside the movies.

I look for a good story. Usually the best stories are the ones that are unbelievably true. 'Soul Surfer' is one of those stories.

I love acting and making your own luck. You have to recreate yourself, I guess. Although, I don't know how.

Playing Bill Clinton is really, probably, the scariest time of my career.

Sometimes in movies, I still have to be the hero, but it's not all that important to me anymore.

That's what is great about what I do, going from one job to the other.

What they will do is, you know the tabloids. They'll take one element of a story that may be true and they'll build everything around it. Take a picture and invent a story around it.

You go to Main Street, and Wal-Mart is coming to town and kicking out all the mom and pop stores. All the people that were in the mom and pop stores are now working for Wal-Mart.

I was very uncomfortable with all the attention when it first started happening to me. I retreated quite a bit from the world, both physically and emotionally. But then you just accept that you can't control what the rest of the world thinks or does.

We all have one, in one form or another. To me, this dragon is both the wild nature of ourselves and our conscience in his embodiment of the Old Code ethical behavior and morality. At the same time, he's our unconscious, the place from which our dreams arise. I just spoke my lines to the dragon within me.

If we never felt sorrow, we'd never recognize bliss.

My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That's what directors are, they're storytellers because they're directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.

My family is the most important thing in the world to me, too, before anything else.

As I grow older, I put all life's bulls**t aside. I think the process of the laying off of the bulls**t starts around 40. Before that, most men have their heads stuck in their ass. After 40, you see things differently. You've found yourself. You're accepting yourself and what you got from life.

What is great about art and artists is that we get to ask the questions, even though we may never know the answers.

Back then, people were throwing their underwear onstage. I remember taking eight pairs of my own underwear to the cleaners and getting only four back.

I was a guy back in the Eighties who was one movie away from a huge career, which at that time didn't happen. In the Nineties, I worked a lot, but it was kind of, 'Get out there and dig and find things.' Then I guess 'The Rookie' and 'Far From Heaven' were referred to as my comeback.

I grew up Baptist and still go to church. I myself have explored other religions, because I want to know what it is that makes other people tick. I find we're all talking about the same thing, really - it's all God.

What, like I want to look like Dick Clark? No. I think I look great with liver spots.

Horseracing and ranch horses are two different animals. You're getting race horses out and running and running them. It can be really problematic. A thoroughbred's very delicate.

I have a ranch in Montana, but it's not a real working ranch. I've always liked the outdoors. I come from Texas. My grandfather was a farmer; that's as close as I come.

I like acting and being a musician. It's like comparing apples and oranges. But I really like my day job. I've always played music since I was 12, and I guess I always will.

I try to be eclectic in my choice of films. If I've done anything that's intentional in my career, it's to try to do as many different types of characters and as many different types of genres of movies that I can.

I was made to be a perfectionist at everything I did. Everything was more important than what I wanted.

I owe the little formal education I got to my drama teacher, Mr. Pickett, who got us to read Shakespeare, Moliere, and other classics.

The truth [always] lies in things that have no words.

I'm not really a pitcher; I just play one in the movies.

Surfing is like golf: You're always battling, and it keeps knocking you down. There are a lot of wipeouts. But when you stay with it and catch that wave, you really taste it. It's magic.

I always wanted to be an astronaut.

I found myself in network always trying to play catch up because once things get going there's no time to fix this and that. And also the writing, it was more inclined to be by committee in network which drowns out the purity and the voice of the show.

God is the only way you're going to make it in life, the glue that holds everything together.

It's as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. Every time Barack Obama's poll numbers rise you can be certain he's done something else to weaken the country. He's empowered a base that loathes American excellence.

Movies usually find me, but I'm open to anything.

My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story.

One thing I've really never had a problem with was memorizing lines. Most of the time I don't memorize the lines until we're on the set shooting the scene.

I didn't want to throw like an actress.

I was a late bloomer. I tried out for the football team, and I got locked off the field. That's how I wound up in drama.

I went out for the football team but, you know, I was too small. That's how I wound up in drama.

My mom wanted to show my dad any idiot could do it.

I still have my original love for acting. That's why I feel so lucky. I think that's what sustains me in the sort of leaner times.

I wasn't interested in doing a baseball story. My favorite sports movies transcend the sports that they are about.

I wasn't interested in doing a baseball story.

I would like to work with Todd Phillips of 'The Hangover'. I would like to do more comedies; it would be a lot of fun. No actors in particular. I don't consciously seek out things to do.

You don't bad-mouth your ex or anything like that. The key is your kid knowing that both parents still love him and are there for him.

When I get a script, it's the only time that I get to be an audience member with the first-time experience of that movie. That's the first and only time.

Wall Street has come to America's heartland, really. The only thing missing are the skyscrapers, you know?

When I watch a movie that I've been in, I'm watching it, but I usually remember what I was doing at that time, what was going on in my life.

Family is the most important thing in life, period.

I've been playing music since I was 12 and I like to play in a band. It takes the place of theatre for me, the live performance element.

I've been down to a 1 twice, and every time I get down there I start playing badly. I'm playing like a 13 right now. I have no idea why. It's all between the ears.

I've spent about a year of my life here between the four movies I've filmed. I can't imagine how devastated people must feel.

Your partner has to live with the best and the worst part of you, and they're affected by it.

There's a moment that comes and I think that it comes for anyone who loves their job and what they do and they've been at it for a while where you realize at an early age, because it's such a gift to realize at an early age what you want to do with your life and know what you want to do.

It's about... my only strategy I've ever had in my career is to do as many different types of roles as possible, as many different types of genres. It keeps the fire in my belly.