Samuel L. Jackson Quotes

I understand being the villain is what people like. People play to that. They want to know about the villain.

I don't think action alone is enough to sustain a film franchise. There are tons of action movies out there that come and go and people don't care about.

What's really fun as the villain is working to get the audience to hate you.

I would think, as an actor, it's just much more fun to be the bad guy.

I love playing a villain. I think that there's something freeing about that, and it's a different kind of challenge. More than anything, for me as an actor, it's about challenging myself and doing as many different things as I can.

I think that every record label has its trials and tribulations, its ups and downs. The only thing you can do is hope to recognize what it is that makes you great, and to try and continue to capture it.

You can't tell an audience to like a character. And I think the best way to get the audience on someone's side is to embarrass them.

Hard knocks have a place and value, but hard thinking goes farther in less time.

Good fiction challenges us as much as it entertains and these days, we could do with both of these things.

A pessimist sees problems in opportunities whereas an optimist sees opportunities in problems.

I was working through a lot of challenges at every angle of my life, and a lot of self-doubt, a lot of pity-partying. And I think every woman in her twenties has been there - where it feels like no matter what you are doing to fight through the thing that is holding you back, nothing can fill that void.

I don't want people to feel: "Why am I watching this? It's sick and sadistic." I want people to watch and think it's scary but they can't wait to see what happens next. I also wanted to make a movie that was watchable.

I think it's fair to say you can't predict a straight line to victory. You know, there'll be good days and bad days along the way.

The human mind thinks but to complicate. As soon as one problem is solved, that solution introduces new complications, other problems that perhaps did not exist before. That was one of my great troubles when I was younger, I invented many things that were very fine, but always I was getting into complications. I have had to work very hard to overcome that.

So one could say that the only real problem is dysfunctional thinking, the rest are challenges, not problems.

In all seriousness, the first book [The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year] was such a love letter to Wacha, that I think people will be interested and surprised to see that I had some challenges with him in year two.

The thing that's important for me to focus on is the balancing of the tension between satisfying myself and satisfying an audience, and making something that I think is good and funny, worthwhile, small-"i" important, versus something that's going to do well.

I do think we all go through struggles in life. I do think we're all going to fall down, along the way.

There are some people who think that at some time in the future, China may challenge us for supremacy in the Pacific, and therefore, what do we do today to prevent that? And you, of course, will say that we will try to thwart any economic progress in China. If we engaged in such a policy, we would turn a billion-plus people into nationalist opponents of the United States.

Your challenge is not your challenge. Your challenge is the way you think about your challenge. Your problem is not your problem; it is the way you look at it.

I think the most challenging thing for me in my life and in the Bible is that we worship Jesus as the Prince of Peace.

I don't think action for action's sake is so fun, but when it helps tell the story, I love doing a good fight scene.

I don't think anyone wants a movie on time that's not worth your time.

I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.

Animation, for me, is a wonderful art form. I never understood why the studios wanted to stop making animation. Maybe they felt that the audiences around the world only wanted to watch computer animation. I didn't understand that, because I don't think ever in the history of cinema did the medium of a film make that film entertaining or not. What I've always felt is, what audiences like to watch are really good movies.