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And then it was like, wait, you can go to college and study theater? And act in plays? This is almost a racket, you know. And then when the opportunity came along to do it professionally, I thought I'd won the lottery.

Tom Hanks

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Tom Hanks
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: July 9
Actor
Character Actor
Comedian
Composer
Executive Producer
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Narrator
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Concord
California
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks
Waiting
Plays
Opportunity
Wait
Thought
Theater
Play
Along
Like
College
Study
Racket
Almost
Professionally
Came
Lottery

More quotes by Tom Hanks

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In the creative process you come to loggerheads and you just have to keep the process moving forward, even if that requires jumping on a plane and flying to London. It's a good thing it's fun, otherwise it would be too much work.
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The average movie set is the least political arena on Earth. Nobody bothers talking about politics because, one, we all love the job so much. You don't talk about current events. You talk about old show business stories and whether or not there's gonna be French onion dip at the craft services table that day.
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A lot of people would flee from what they think is award-show cheesiness, and I don't. I often joke that my speeches are very personal moments that play themselves out in front of billions of people.
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We are all God's animated cartoons.
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Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there's less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what's the fun in eating anything you want to?
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Reading a script is usually as exciting as reading a boilerplate legal document, so when you read one that makes you feel as if you're seeing the movie, you know it's something different.
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Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?
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If I stopped having passion, I'd be done.
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When I was 21 years old, I had a job playing Santa Claus in a shopping centre in Sacramento. I was rail thin, so it's not like I was a traditional Santa Claus even then. I had a square stomach that was the shape of the sofa cushion that I had stuffed into my pants.
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But actors with political views are a dime a dozen.
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If I have no connection with the character, then it's all fake - it's just blah, blah, blah.
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It was incredibly cheesy set with torches [TV's Survivor] - it looked like the lobby of the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. And here as some guy pulling names out of a coconut, and I said, 'This is the thing that has made American mass media stop in their tracks?
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I'm not interested in doing something edgy with a capital E just so everyone knows, 'Oh, OK, now he's showing us he can do edgy.'
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I've worked with people who are much further to the left than I am and much further to the right than I am. At the end of the day, who gives a ... . Good for you. This is America. Vote your conscience.
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If you can feel like a good man in your 40s, you can feel like a better man in your 50s, a Superman in your 60s, and maybe a Spider-Man in your 70s.
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Without question, we make choices - and those choices have consequences. So can you control your own destiny? To a degree, certainly. Must you have faith in serendipity? Without question, you'd better. Otherwise you're foolish.
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It's not a mid-life crisis. It's a mid-life disaster. A mid-life crisis is when you wake up with everything and you go I have everything but I'm still unhappy.
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There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.
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A story has the opportunity to enlighten us, because as we connect the extraordinary moments on film with the ordinary moments of our lives, we ask ourselves, What am I going to do the next time I'm scared? What would it be like to say goodbye to my family for the last time?
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I don't ask for much. I don't ask to be rich, and I don't ask to be famous, and I don't ask to play center field for the New York Yankees. I just want to get married and have a wife, and a house, and I want to have a kid, and I want to go see him be a tooth in the school play!
Tom Hanks