Daniel Day-Lewis Quotes

I feel less often compelled to do the work than I was in the past.

I don't deal at all well with the relative amount of stuff I have to face already.

I still relate to my father very much. I mean, I talk to him in a certain way, as we do talk to the dead.

Periodically over the years I've always taken periods of time away from acting.

My curiosity sustains me for the period of the shoot.

I'm a warrior when it comes to pursuing roles.

I hate the domestic life.

For about a year, I just didn't know what to do. I did laboring jobs, working in the docks, construction sites.

To people who don't know me I'm defined by a number of things that people know about me that are entirely untrue.

I'm not picky, quite honestly.

I've got a serious-looking head.

I hate wasting people's time.

If you have a certain wildness of spirit, a cabinet maker's workshop is not the place to express it.

Where I come from, it was a heresy to say you wanted to be in movies, leave alone American movies.

I'm not keen on history being tampered with... to any extent.

There must've been some part of me that wanted to make my mark. But there was never a defining moment.

Perhaps I'm particularly serious, because I'm not unaware of the potential absurdity of what I'm doing.

Be grateful, be grateful, be grateful.

How people are around a director, it really does affect everything, every detail of the life of the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis

Shoes are strange things. If you take your shoes off in a situation in which you're vulnerable, you'll feel 10 times more vulnerable.

I have no role models. Many heroes. I have an enormous capacity for hero worship.

My preference is that, that day when someone sticks a tripod in front of you with a camera on the top, it is not day one.

The greater your powers of self-delusion, the greater will be the apparent efficacy of this untruth.

I have always been intrigued by these lives I have never experienced.

I'm woefully one-track-minded.

I don't do all of this as an indulgence. I do it because I'm not a good enough actor to not do it.

I spend many months in apparently listless rumination out of which I hope something will emerge.

Making a film, setting it up and getting it cast and getting it together, is not an easy thing

It's easy to love humanity when you're this far away from it.

At some point in your life, if you're lucky, you get to design the way in which things evolve.

I'm a little bit perverse, and I just hate doing the thing that's the most obvious.

If you remain unsettled by a piece of writing, it means you are not watching the story from the outside; you've already taken a step toward it.

Just stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. I will find you!

I love to sit and watch people. I love to sit and listen to people.

I find it difficult to be in rooms now for long periods of time. I can usually take it for about an hour. Then I stride out.

You can never fully put your finger on the reason why you're suddenly, inexplicably compelled to explore one life as opposed to another.

I didn't like the idea of being foolish, but I learned pretty soon that it was essential to fail and be foolish.

A voice is such a deep, personal reflection of character.

I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.

I like things that make you grit your teeth. I like tucking my chin in and sort of leading into the storm. I like that feeling. I like it a lot.

I live in a landscape, which every single day of my life is enriching.

Acting is about people. Other people. Otherwise, you're not acting, you're doing monologues.

The more articulate somebody is, the more suspicious I am of them. I like to feel that the important things remain unsaid.

Everybody has to know for themselves what they're capable of.