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My job has always been to hold a mirror up to nature.

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
Mirror
Mirrors
Hold
Jobs
Nature
Always

More quotes by Tom Hanks

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Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.
Tom Hanks
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One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.
Tom Hanks
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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
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But look, I was born in 1956, the peak year for births in US history. I think I'm very representative of many of the thought processes my generation have been through and, by and large, people of my age have had their imprint planted on the consciousness of western society for a long time.
Tom Hanks
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But the battles against loneliness that I fought when I was 16 are very different from those I fought when I was 27, and those are very different from the ones I fight at 44.
Tom Hanks
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The prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the actual physical one.
Tom Hanks
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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.
Tom Hanks
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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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What we're doing with Band of Brothers is trying to put it into human terms, so it is not just a flickering, black and white myth on a screen, it is a resonant story. I want the audience to recognize themselves in these men. They're not just mythic heroes.
Tom Hanks
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Even the simplest choice can make a jaw-dropping difference in our world.
Tom Hanks
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If I was to direct Ron Howard, I guarantee you, I would put him through a living hell every day. I would demand so much of him. We wouldn't quit until he leaves the set crying. Weeping! Spent!
Tom Hanks
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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.
Tom Hanks
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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.
Tom Hanks
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It's difficult to say no sometimes. I often hear, They'll really take care of you, or Someone else is going to take the role if you don't play it. Some of the best advice I ever received was to always ask myself: Am I going to kill myself if somebody else takes this role? The answer is almost always no.
Tom Hanks
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All directors should have to act and all actors should have to direct, so that they can understand all these key things that come into play with whether you can meet your day.
Tom Hanks
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At the end of the day it's got to be a good movie, it's got to be a funny movie, and it's got to make people think, 'Hey, I couldn't have spent my time any better.'
Tom Hanks
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I've been doing a pale imitation of Bill Murray for most of my career.
Tom Hanks
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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?
Tom Hanks
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Mass-market movies have become about one thing. They kind of declare themselves right off the bat. . . . But when I go to see (a film), I want to be surprised. I want to see something I never expected. And when you get that, it should be celebrated.
Tom Hanks
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I try to do what I call the three E's - educate, entertain, and enlighten. If you don't entertain, no one will show up. But you also have to educate, because people want to discover specific things about a world unlike their own - whether it's how hard it is to go to the moon or how scary it is to be on Omaha Beach.
Tom Hanks