Sean Astin Quotes

I think a man is a man, and a man has a hairy chest, so let that be!

I think part of being masculine is not needing to prove it and not needing to answer for it.

Not only is it harder to be a man, it is also harder to become one.

There are alternate definitions of manhood in the West.

When you're a man you try and be macho.

Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.

Men are recognizing that they have been forced to conform to a very narrow and rather two-dimensional picture of maleness and manhood that they have never had the freedom to question.

The crazy thing is a lot of people - a lot of men, if I'm just speaking for myself - don't really start thinking about the effect of hyper-masculinity and false definitions of what it means to be a man until you get married or until you have kids. Because then, all of sudden, you have something to protect.

If you're a man, you don't have to worry about your manliness.

I was never in an awkward position where I had to curb my manhood.

A guy should be a guy. You don't want him to be too... shiny.

I'm not macho, I'm not a Mel Gibson sort of person.

I'm just glad that the whole John Wayne persona of a man is sort of old school now, because I'd never be able to do that. If that was the going rate today, I wouldn't be working.

My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.

Guess in my brain I have a figurative 'man card' that's got certain punches that need to be punched.

Men weren't really the enemy - they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.

The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.

There is a major part of who I am that does not feel like the alpha male.

You'd think true masculinity was just calm and collected happiness. So alpha male that it needs not or worries not. But typically masculine characters are always fighting, and most violence comes from some agitated level of fear and anxiety.

Violence has always been unfortunately embedded in masculinity, this alpha thing.

I come from a country whose idea of masculinity is quite extreme, and I've grown up around a lot of that energy. I've been part of that a lot. And it's very draining; it's quite tiring trying to be macho.

I think we still live in this era of hyper-masculinity.

There's so much toxic masculinity out there. I grew up with the notion that the more masculine you are and the less you show emotion, the more of a man you are.

In thinking about male identities, I'm struck by the inadequacy of the terms we use. The notion that men should be distant, domineering and self-seeking is often described as toxic masculinity, but this serves only to alienate those who might need most help.

I believe there's a huge distinction between un macho and a real man. I don't think you have to be one to be another.