Kevin Costner Quotes

For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.

It took me a long time to find out that I was born to be an actor. It was the last thing on my list, although my list was very small. I didn't know what to do. But kids weren't supposed to know what to do back then; we were all cute and we'd find out what we'd do later in life.

I was in college that first semester, and I was like, 'Wow, this isn't who I am. This isn't what I want to do.' I was like, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to go out and make something of myself, and I have no clue what that is.'

Our deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time.

If only I could change my destiny and be a man, …

I had money, but I still didn't know what to do with my life.

I have a song called "Men." I mean, manhood and trying to be one, and failing as one, and trying to be a husband and a father, and failing at that. I love failure. It's stuff that I'm thinking about all the time in my life, so it would make sense to me anyway to write about it.

Men tend to define themselves by what they do, and so if you're dealing with a character who's trying to figure that out, or multiple characters, then there's something there for guys, too.

At a certain age it just became apparent to me that this was probably the work that I would have to do.

We take men's obligation to earn money, and when they do it well, we blame them for having power and being oppressors. And when they don't do it all, women just don't marry men who are reading 'I'm Okay, You're Okay' in the unemployment line.

I felt like I was going crazy as a kid. I wanted to be man, get a job.

When you're in college, you really don't know where you're going to end up, but you know who you want to be along that journey.

I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's.

Not sure of my place in the world (still up for debate) and not sure what I wanted to do with my life (not really up for debate).

By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.

The cardinal rule for any performer is that they should know themselves before they enter the spotlight, and I didn't. I was just Neil and I did what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to get married, so I got married. I was supposed to get a job, so I looked for work.

I had moved back to Kenya after undergrad, and I went through this crisis of, 'What is my life going to be about?'

For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was desperate to find something that fit me and I just decided that if I could organically make a professional living out of the things that interested me, then I would be a happy person.

My advice to anyone is to figure out what you're good at - what it is that you love doing the most in life - and figure out a way to make a living from it.

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. It's funny - people ask me that, and I don't know what to tell them.

Some ideas, like what you're going to do with your life, take time to form.

I studied law, economy, international relations, communications, in order to find what I would do. It's the hardest thing, being 17 and trying to find what to do in life. You've explored so little. I'm lucky: My parents let me explore.

Although becoming a singer was my plan A after first hearing Whitney Houston when I was 17, I started off with plan B by going to the teacher-training college that my dad went to. It was a slow coming of age.

Sometimes I wake up and think, 'How did I get here?'

People go to college to find who they are as a person and find what they want to do in life, and I kind of already know that so it would be like I'd be taking a step back or something.