Craig T. Nelson Quotes

Is it the factitious and the conventional that most surely succeed on earth and in the course of life?

It seems, by today's standards, that it's better to seek approval than to tell the truth. It's better to utter sweet nothings than to boldly say something of substance.

If I try and be something I am not, if I try and be cool, and I am not, I am a boring white man in a suit. Usually a pin-striped suit.

I think everyone, all of us, are complicated people. We have jobs that require us to be a certain way. We all do. Unfortunately, our jobs overtake our personality, but that is the world. We live in a conundrum. You have to keep it together.

I always knew who I was, but everyone else wanted to me to be their 'idea' of the 'right' artist. At times, I even believed them.

I think temptation is ever present to become something that you think is more socially acceptable.

People are trying to act like they're balling all day with cars, their house, like there's no problems. I feel like a lot of people are trying to be someone they're not, and when you're just yourself, life is so much easier because you don't have to keep up this facade.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

I dress up with a conscience when I think you'll be watching. I say all the right things, I don't know what I mean.

Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.

I don't believe we have a professional self from Mondays through Fridays and a real self for the rest of the time.

Anyone becomes mannered if you think too much about what other people think.

People are always going to identify with what it's like living in society and have people judge you in certain ways, and how you can be strong enough to be your own person and all those good things.

Hollywood is so fake and people need to realize that people are just people, and you, too, don't need to be born into something or have money or have whatever product someone is hawking on you.

As a son of a man who pretended to be one thing for 33 years of my life and then was another thing, the questions of 'what is real' and 'what is not real' are very blurrily vivid to me.

One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas - and you have to work through it all.

I was raised to pretend.

When who you are naturally is not only considered a sin, but you're reviled for being that human being and you don't have any control over it, there are lots of issues that come into play. And it takes a lot of presence, determination, courage and space to figure out how to land in that truth regardless of what anyone around you thinks about it.

I think behind closed doors people behave differently no matter what period we're looking at, because people have to stand up straight in public but can slouch behind closed doors - can you imagine wearing those corsets?

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

Whenever you see people talking about how real they are or how normal they are, it seems odd to have that self awareness that you could potentially not be normal.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

You know, our sense of individuality is just the number one target of civilization.

Well, sometimes when you say you want to be like everybody else, you're really saying that you're not.

I've learned a lot about how people have to fight through their whole lives just to be themselves.