Fred Ward Quotes

I'm not changing to the point where suddenly I wear floor-length skirts and start playing the violin; I'm just growing up a little bit, I guess.

All stories are just stories of a character changing.

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.

The benefits of the accomplished journey cannot be weighed in terms of perfect moments, but in terms of how this journey affects and changes our character.

I wanted to look at them because I feel, internally, that I am an ordinary person who has had an extraordinary life.

Pippin chooses love and finds a greater sense of himself at the end of all the madness. I relate to him in many ways. I have been through stuff, thought I knew best, and often been proven wrong.

You try things on in life. You wear them for a while, and you see what's next.

Some lessons take years to learn, with repeated exposure to the same path sometimes shadowed by the inner conscience of own souls. But eventually we learn, and our journey continues in another direction.

After each experience, you grow up, you get enriched with something, and you don't know how you're going to be in six months, you don't know what you're going to want, what you're going to need.

A man's character never changes radically from youth to old age. What happens is that circumstances bring out characteristics which have not been obvious to the superficial observer.

By the time you're 30, you know who you are inside. You learn to laugh at things you can't change; you learn to be yourself.

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

When you have a traumatic event in your life, you change. You're not the same person you were, and you have to discover who you've become.

Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.

With a lot of comedies, the characters go on a journey, and they come back, and they're the exact same people.

Testing of self is a regular part of our own lives, so it seems natural to make it a part of the lives of my characters, as well, albeit on a much different level.

When characters change on screen, it makes you feel better about yourself. You think, 'Oh I change too, I'm constantly becoming a better person.'

My journey through life has led me through both light and dark places, and it's because of those experiences that I have learned how to work through my character defects and to help others do the same.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

In retrospect, I'm grateful for the break-up of my marriage because it forced me to deal with all the buried issues I probably wouldn't have otherwise faced. I'm a better, kinder, happier person today because of the spiritual and emotional growth I've experienced.

I try to say something about the human condition whenever I can when I'm lucky.

Why am I the way I am? Well, I used to be different.

I have been shaped by my mistakes and disappointments - just as I have been shaped by my successes.

Everything I have experienced in my life helps form who I am today, and I would not change or forget any of it.

My real guru are my experiences in life - the realisation that you are alone in this world came very early to me.