260 Quotes by Billy Bob Thornton

There are rules in movies. I did a movie playing a bad cop who was a heroin addict but they wouldn’t let me smoke in a movie.

Normally you’re 21 years old and you look like Tom Cruise and you do a couple underwear commercials first and then you’re a movie star. That didn’t happen for me. So it was all quite overwhelming.

Kids won’t watch older movies – they want to see what’s hip right now.

I’ve gone through my periods. I’ve read the Bible completely, all the way through twice. I did it once when I was about 20 and I did it again when I was about 30.

I mean the most important thing you can have as an actor, writer, director, or whatever you are, poet or whatever it is, is life experience. Life experience doesn’t mean you have to live 50 years to have it. I mean you know a lot of people have huge life experience by the time they’re in college.

I worked as a roadie in the rock and roll business which was great fun. Very little money, very little food and the whole thing about the roadie’s lifestyle is great because all the groupies have to go through the roadies to get to the rock stars. It’s not necessarily true.

You can get famous for doing something stupid and empty, but you do something stupid and empty and you’re already famous, you lose your career.

I never expected to be a movie star. It’s not that I didn’t want to be, I didn’t think about it. I wanted to be an actor.

You can write when you’re dyslexic, you just can’t read it. But I started writing short stories as a child and I found the short story format a real nice one. I love short stories and I love short documentaries or short films of any kind.