Robin Williams famous quotes

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
-- Robin Williams

#Inspirational #Change #Philosophy

The idea of the industrial fishing affects everyone. Those factory ships play this game of hit and run with the international fishing limits, and somebody said it's like hunting squirrels with a bulldozer. They pull everything in and they are only looking for certain types of fish and everything else dies and they just throw it back. It's like chumming.
-- Robin Williams

#Running #Hunting #Fishing

Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Real #Love You

If heaven exists, to know that there's laughs, that would be a great thing...
-- Robin Williams

#Laughing #Heaven #Would Be

Boys, you must strive to find your own voice, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all.
-- Robin Williams

#Boys #Voice #Waiting

I've never had a "hankering" to direct. I can perform, but I can't write on that level. I tend to go off on tangents. Directing also requires a kind of specificity and I don't have it.
-- Robin Williams

#Writing #Levels #Kind

I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.
-- Robin Williams

#Love #Life #Thinking

The great thing about marriage is the idea of really getting to know someone. And really getting to know a woman is a life long task.
-- Robin Williams

#Ideas #Long #Tasks

Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, 'Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.'
-- Robin Williams

#Father #Memorable #Men

Politically, I don't care what party you're from, offer a point of view and let's see what happens and really debate the issues rather than use personal attacks. Really talk about it, talk about immigration, talk about education, talk about pollution.
-- Robin Williams

#Party #Views #Issues

Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?
-- Robin Williams

#Funny #Witty #Moving

The dramas for me allow me to explore more behavioral, deeper psychological things. But the comedies obviously allow me to explore the idea of really working off other people. I'm having more fun doing that.
-- Robin Williams

#Fun #Drama #Ideas

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.
-- Robin Williams

#Inspirational #Positive #Depression

Even when I did my Broadway show, I did 15 minutes no one had seen before, because that was the night that Michael Jackson protested about Al Sharpton bailing on him. I said, "Wow, if that man bails on you, this must be really a lost cause."
-- Robin Williams

#Night #Men #Broadway

The idea of being a character who is kind of isolated, I can relate to that.
-- Robin Williams

#Character #Ideas #One Line

When your spinal cord freezes up, you're vulnerable to everything. But he [Chrestopher Reese] was tough as nails. And he kept a great, kind of dark sense of humor about it, but also was able to accomplish amazing things.
-- Robin Williams

#Dark #Able #Nails

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren't paying attention to.
-- Robin Williams

#Life #Philosophy #Memorable

We were totally opposite - me coming from the West Coast and a junior college, and him [ Christopher Reeve] from the hard-core Ivy League. He used to be the studly studly of all studlies, and I was the little fool ferret boy.
-- Robin Williams

#Boys #College #Opposites

When in doubt, go for the dick joke.
-- Robin Williams

#Doubt #Jokes

Lance Armstrong pushes the envelope in terms of the human experience. You can have a personal best, you can push your own envelope. For Lance, the person pushing him is him. The only person he's competing with, I think, is himself. To push that limit to the next step. There's a lot to learn from him. Lots.
-- Robin Williams

#Thinking #Envelopes #Limits

If it's the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?
-- Robin Williams

#Funny #Witty #Inspiration

With mountain biking, it's always that constant thing, negotiating singletrack, which I like, but for a road ride that rhythm is really Buddhist. When you get a good pedal stoke, it's that thing of everything works.
-- Robin Williams

#Buddhist #Mountain #Pedals

Friends come in all sizes, take it from me! Golly gee, size doesn't matter, when you want some friendly patter from a pal who is true.
-- Robin Williams

#Friendly #Want #Matter

The truth is, if anything, I'm probably addicted to laughter.
-- Robin Williams

#Laughter #Truth Is

One day [when I relapsed] I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel's. And then that voice - I call it the 'lower power' - goes, 'Hey. Just a taste. Just one.' I drank it, and there was that brief moment of 'Oh, I'm okay!' But it escalated so quickly. Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street.
-- Robin Williams

#Suicide #Wind #Voice

I basically started performing for my mother, going, 'Love me!' What drives you to perform is the need for that primal connection. When I was little, my mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.
-- Robin Williams

#Mother #Needs #Littles

It was kind of a decompression - from straight alcohol to mixed drinks to wine to spritzers - and then you're out.
-- Robin Williams

#Wine #Alcohol #Kind

You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Winning #Guarantees

Bicycles are pieces of art. You get that combination of kinetic engineering, but then, besides the welds, the paint jobs, the kind of the sculpture of it all is quite beautiful. Bikes have such great lines, and all different styles.
-- Robin Williams

#Beautiful #Art #Jobs

A human life is just a heartbeat in heaven.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Heaven #Life Is

It is hard to find something where you can go off as much as I do in stand-up, but I think stand-up allows me that freedom where you can really go off and have a good time.
-- Robin Williams

#Thinking #Good Times #Having A Good Time

There's three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.
-- Robin Williams

#Nice #Philosophy #Navy

Change is not popular; we are creatures of habit as human beings. 'I want it to be the way it was.' But if you continue the way it was there will be no 'is.'
-- Robin Williams

#Way #Want #Habit

Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: 'You've just killed a small animal. It's time for a light beer.' Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, 'It's five o'clock in the morning. You've just pissed on a dumpster. It's Miller time.'
-- Robin Williams

#Morning #Beer #Animal

Humor is a great defense, and an offense too. Usually the recipient isn't too happy about it, but the people around are laughing.
-- Robin Williams

#Laughing #People #Defense

I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.
-- Robin Williams

#Way #Different #Looks

If you're going to do a movie about the Village, it's pretty nice to shoot in the village and not be in Toronto.
-- Robin Williams

#Nice #Village #Toronto

You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the south? Nothing! Someone is losing a trailer.
-- Robin Williams

#Divorce #Differences #Tornadoes

Shooting in New York is the shiznit, if I may be so bold. It was great. New York is a character. People who live here know that.
-- Robin Williams

#New York #Character #People

I thought lacrosse was what you find in la church.
-- Robin Williams

#Sports #Motivational Sports #Lacrosse

I did an event in Washington, and it was like we lifted a sea.Immediately after [9/11], there was a stunned shock - kind of this feeling of "What do we do now?" I started performing, and there was a catharsis in the laughing. People started to be able to laugh again. Laughter can be many things - sometimes a medicine, sometimes a weapon, depending on.
-- Robin Williams

#Laughter #Sea #Medicine

Decaf is like masturbating with an oven mitt!
-- Robin Williams

#Coffee #Ovens

I play a lot of computer games. I love computer graphics. I've had Pixar in me for a long time.
-- Robin Williams

#Games #Play #Long

In down times I do things like go for a long bike ride or run. The other thing I'm doing in that quiet time is just observing.
-- Robin Williams

#Inspirational #Running #Long

Directing requires great discipline, that ability to be in and out at the same time. The great ones I've worked with are like generals. It's a bit like a small war on that level. The great ones have that combination of freedom and control. I'm nowhere near that. There's still so much to do as an actor. I have enough to explore with that.
-- Robin Williams

#War #Discipline #Actors

Nobody takes a picture of something they want to forget.
-- Robin Williams

#Want #Forget

Cable is not bound because people pay for it. It's literally a choice, that's the operative word. If you don't like the language, if ***** offends you, then turn it off.
-- Robin Williams

#People #Choices #Pay

All you have to do is think one happy thought, and you'll fly like me.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Thinking #Happy Thoughts

I can be trained, I can actually show you how intelligent I am, I can use a word like delicatessen and know what it means.
-- Robin Williams

#Mean #Intelligent #Use

Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you're licensed to do that. It's an understood relationship. You walk on stage - it's your job.
-- Robin Williams

#Jobs #Memorable #Steps

I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage. That was the only thing that interested me, along with learning the craft and working, and just being in productions with people.
-- Robin Williams

#Memorable #Ideas #People

On rides you see things that trigger ideas. And most the time it's just not doing anything but riding ... letting it all go.
-- Robin Williams

#Ideas #Riding #Triggers

Life is fleeting. And if you're ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day... make a wish and think of me.
-- Robin Williams

#Summer #Stars #Eye

Even evangelicals realize that Pinocchio's father was a carpenter too. That's the old joke.
-- Robin Williams

#Father #Realizing #Carpenter

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.
-- Robin Williams

#Party #Memorable #Canada

We are surrounded by a lot of failed ecosystems; the moon being one, Mars, Venus. ThereÂ’s evidence of water on Mars and rivers and it didnÂ’t take. Also, we have planets to guard us like Jupiter and Saturn that take the hits of the comets. It is miraculous that we exist on this planet, that it took.
-- Robin Williams

#Moon #Ecosystems #Rivers

But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
-- Robin Williams

#Life #Romance #Alive

I love doing live action movies, but there's a great job in doing animation, especially one with music.
-- Robin Williams

#Jobs #Action #Great Job

Do you think God gets stoned? I think so ... look at the platypus.
-- Robin Williams

#Thinking #Looks #Platypus

I prefer to be handcuffed at home. The idea of voice work to me is great fun, especially when it's a chance to do two different voices.
-- Robin Williams

#Fun #Home #Ideas

What's wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can't we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity and decency and, God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy, gentlemen. If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.
-- Robin Williams

#Death #Fighting #Humanity

I know size can be daunting but don't be afraid.
-- Robin Williams

#Size

Seize the day. Make your life extraordinary.
-- Robin Williams

#Love Life #Seize The Day #Extraordinary

Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions ... very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you'd see a Buddhist landscape fog.
-- Robin Williams

#Beautiful #Running #Spiritual

Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone.
-- Robin Williams

#Mean #Bones #Choke

I was in Iraq, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Bahrain. The first year I went pretty much by myself. Then I went with General [Richard] Myers, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The shows and audiences were amazing. You'll never get a better group of people.
-- Robin Williams

#Years #Iraq #People

To be free. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world,
-- Robin Williams

#Life #Magic #World

If I ever asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked a woman and been totally vulnerable.
-- Robin Williams

#Love You #Vulnerable #Sonnet

Gentlemen, haven't we learned anything from the music of John Lennon? All we need is love.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Gentleman #Needs

It doesn't matter who you are, if you've got the legs, you can hang with them.
-- Robin Williams

#Matter #Legs #Who You Are

My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' - I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.'
-- Robin Williams

#Children #Growing Up #Book

My father retired to San Francisco, and I got a chance to know him and be around him. It's always been someplace where everything changed for the better. It's always been a home for me.
-- Robin Williams

#Father #Home #San Francisco

But if there's love, dear... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Heart #Ties

Comedy pays the bills if I can't find a film.
-- Robin Williams

#Bills #Pay #Comedy

Please, don't worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth. Life is fleeting.
-- Robin Williams

#Philosophy #Worry #Long

I try to make sense of things. Which is why, I guess, I believe in destiny. There must be a reason that I am as I am. There must be.
-- Robin Williams

#Believe #Destiny #Trying

A lot of celebrities golf because they want to be away. For them it's a chance to get away and be peaceful. For me it's peaceful to ride [cycling].
-- Robin Williams

#Golf #Cycling #Peaceful

If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.
-- Robin Williams

#Memorable #Fighting #Disease

With a bike you go from zero to a hundred in terms of mobility.
-- Robin Williams

#Zero #Mobility #Hundred

Improv. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's like open-field running.
-- Robin Williams

#Beautiful #Running #Fields

Finding a good script is really difficult and the scariest thing of all is when they say about a script that's not right, "we will fix it.." It's like before you get on the Titanic and you see a big hole. In process, it's too late.
-- Robin Williams

#Too Late #Scripts #Process

I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was... a large Arctic region covered with ice.
-- Robin Williams

#Country #Peace #Believe

When you really do find a new idea or you're in and it's all working, that's the gift. It's like a musician when they hit a riff, that's when you're like all right, it's mellow. You back off and just ride it.
-- Robin Williams

#Ideas #Musician #Mellow

What some folks call impossible is just stuff they haven't seen before.
-- Robin Williams

#Stuff #Impossible #Folks

I'm fascinated by the new iPhone. I bought it and kept trying to use it in France. "Siri, what is a good restaurant?" (In a robotic voice.) "I'm sorry, Robin. I can't give locations in France." "Why, Siri?" "I don't know." It's like she was upset with the French or something. "They seem to have an attitude I can't understand. Should I look for Germans, Robin?"
-- Robin Williams

#Sorry #Attitude #Voice

The Russians love Brooke Shields because her eyebrows remind them of Leonid Brezhnev.
-- Robin Williams

#Love #Eyebrows #Shields

I don't have a college degree, and my father didn't have a college degree, so when my son, Zachary, graduated from college, I said, "My boy's got learnin'!"
-- Robin Williams

#Father #Son #Boys

Look at the walls of Pompeii. That's what got the internet started.
-- Robin Williams

#Wall #Pompeii #Looks

My preference is live performance, because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that.
-- Robin Williams

#Thinking #Actors #Energy

When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence
-- Robin Williams

#Buddhist #Riding #Existence

My preference is live performance. Because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn't matter what size and what club, whether it's 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It's live, it's symbiotic, you need it.
-- Robin Williams

#Thinking #People #Comedian

Reality: What a concept!
-- Robin Williams

#Life #Memorable #Reality

Sometimes with a comedy it's just having the instinct of how real you play it and what level you want it.
-- Robin Williams

#Real #Play #Levels

Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work!
-- Robin Williams

#Business #Giving #Lectures

The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.
-- Robin Williams

#Second Amendment #Politics #Arms

I love to ride my bike, which is great aerobics, but also just a great time for me to think, so it's like this terrific double bill.
-- Robin Williams

#Thinking #Bills #Bike

We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture.
-- Robin Williams

#Funny #Inspiration #Gay

Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose.
-- Robin Williams

#Beauty #Fighting #Ugly

If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.
-- Robin Williams

#Inspirational #Funny #Strong Women

You can start any 'Monty Python' routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.
-- Robin Williams

#Python #People #Routine