Val Kilmer quotes: on luck, weird decisions, fame, making money consistently, and more.
“Do what you like to do so well that someone will pay you wages for it.”
“It seems to me that every step forward in my life has been one that brings me to a better understanding of this: that you do your thing every day the best that you can, and you approach any success at it with humility.”
“Anybody who believes that their success exists in relation to their goals is deluding themselves; unless you think of a career in terms of financial goals.”
“Where can you trust your own thoughts and your own intentions? Everywhere, hopefully, but it isn’t always that easy. Sometimes, you have to help yourself along.”
“The truth of absolute loyalty, no matter what the consequences, someone who absolutely has your back 100% as a modern statement resonates deeply for me. It represents a sense of responsibility – from being able to trust another soul with your life with an understanding that allows the friend to represent you.”
“I like to take risks.”
“I don’t look back.”
“I never had a business plan. I did, actually – I’m lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again.”
“The only time it’s ever like work is when you don’t like what you’ve done.”
“I worked for many years where I was only interested in a very personal, subjective idea, and I was very lucky that acting enabled that. I could live a fantasy lifestyle and travel the world and have a lot of adventures. I would take on jobs where it was exclusively some aspect of acting that I was interested in, not really any regard for a career.”
“If you think that by threatening me you can get me to do what you want… well, that’s where you’re right.”
“What I do for a living is listen.”
“I can safely say that no one who has ever won an Oscar didn’t want to win an Oscar.”
“I’d get upset when things like Oscars and recognition failed to come my way. I would like to have more Oscars than anybody.”
“My perception is that I’ve never done anything but work really hard.”
“My only challenge is to entertain. And I accomplish my task better when I myself am entertained by what I am doing. I am very critical of myself, I constantly set the bar higher and higher. I try to surpass myself. That’s all. But I also know how to preserve myself, to not let myself get bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors.”
“I liked being Doc Holliday. It’s fun to be insightful and aristocratic, to stand up for your friend and make sacrifices for him. It was fun to be arrogant like he was and have the goods to back it up. He was a very noble character. Although, let’s not forget, he did kill a lot of people.”
“It’s important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, [it] helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it’s a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.”
“It’s always helped me to have a foundation, an ideal to strive for, and goals. It’s hard for me to be disciplined and plan things.”
“I don’t make any pretense about being normal. I’m not.”
“Give me the compliments. I love compliments. I was born modest, but it wore off.”
“I don’t think of my life as a cliché, but I’m a cliché eccentric. Complete with a strange name – I mean, who’s named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?”
“Fame is sort of a mess. You get treated differently, but it doesn’t have anything to do with who you actually are.”
“I am older and know more. I was very ambitious about acting when I was younger. Now that I know how to do it better, and now I’m going to really be blunt, I’m focusing on being a business man. I want to be consistent as an actor. I’ve always made strange choices. Having said that, last year I wanted the same thing… so maybe I’ll just keep making strange choices but I would like to be regarded as a reliable money-maker for my employers. I’ve made over a billion dollars since I started acting.”
“They try and tag things on you, but I’ve been lucky. It’s a system, we all know how it works and I’ve made my employers millions of dollars, so I guess I’ve worked in Hollywood successfully.”
“I don’t really have too much of a notion about success or popularity, because I never played that. I never cultivated fame, I never cultivated a persona. Except possibly the desire to be regarded as an actor.”
“Not to be too grand, but I do look at acting as a noble profession. You’re in service of telling a story. You’re giving something away of your life, something you’ve learned.”
“Because I believe that the power of prayer is as potent today as it was in Jesus’s time. Extraordinary assumptions are often made about others when one considers what a complete mystery our own bodies are to most of us. People are often afraid of what they don’t understand. I was.”
“I wouldn’t know what I know now spiritually without turning away from the success as often as I did. I did my ‘time in the wilderness’ in a very serious way, and today I know who I am, and can look any man on earth, in the face, with love, empathy and forgiveness.”
“I’m so grateful I’ve experienced firsthand what consistent prayer and love can offer.”
“I see life as more of a contract than a life into death, death into life cycle. I see life as God and God as ever-present.”
“Life is precious, and when someone dies it’s an opportunity to realize how precious it is.”
“If you know where your spiritual center is, and you neglect it, peace will always allude you.”
“I saw the horizon. It’s out there. And though I may not ever be able to touch it, it’s worth reaching for.”
“Once is more than generous for any lifetime.”
“There is no normal life, there’s just life. You live it.”
“It’s only fair to make people feel good and happy – they are at work.”
“Thank you, it’s been fun.”
