The 70 best quotes by Sean Penn

We review the best quotes and reflections of this great Californian actor.

Sean Penn (born 1960) is a Californian actor born in Santa Monica.

In his outstanding career as a performer, Sean Penn has managed to win two Oscar Awards for his appearance in two unforgettable films: Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2009). He has also participated in films directed by Brian de Palma and other great directors of the time.

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Sean Penn's quotes, a unique actor

In today's article we are going to know better the personality and thoughts of this magnificent performer through the best quotes of Sean Penn..

1. I like to believe that love is a reciprocal thing, that you can't really feel it.

His ethical proposal about this feeling.

Only in innocence do you find any kind of magic, any kind of courage.

That's why he understands the minds of children so well.

3. If you can't count on your Heart to have some kind of unified response, you can't count on anything. You use your heart as a barometer to complete the picture.

A unique and personal way to round out a beautiful story.

4. In summary, I will say that it was an approach to family and author Jon Krakauer, which led me to look like the top of the heap of various filmmakers who were trying to get the rights. And I mean top of the heap in terms of being someone who was trusted to do it, because they said they were going to try to do it and that this way of doing it would be something they would be willing to allow.

About an episode of his professional life.

5. The bottom line is you love your wife, you do your best with that.

About love and marriage.

6. That on a romantic level, if you feel for someone and it's pure, it means they do too.

About the feeling of love.

7. There's no shame when I say we all want to be loved.

That's just the way it is, as much as I sound like a tough guy.

8. I think it's a good time for those who voted for the gay marriage ban to sit back and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that form of support. We must have equal rights for all.

Their ideological position on gay marriage.

9. Well, I'm pretty anti-legend, I just don't think they're helpful. So that certainly wouldn't be my intention. But will it contribute to that? Of course it would. Any drug can be misused. But I think there is great courage, innocence and magic to it, which more than a legend is about connection.

A thought-provoking reflection from Sean Penn that allows us to think long and hard.

10. Mediocrity is widely celebrated and many wonderful things are ignored or discouraged.

Public favor is often quite unfair.

11. A child has a fever in the United States and is tall enough and sustainable enough, all of us can take a child to an emergency room. Most Haitians never had that opportunity. They didn't have the emergency room to take them to. Practically, every time your child has a fever, you wait for them to die and you don't have clean water to give them.

About the differences between the first world and the Caribbean country, one of the poorest on the planet.

12. So, if we have something original to offer, it is to talk about our own life about the society in which we find ourselves.

Each biography is unique and has great added value.

13. I believe that we all have light and darkness within us.

We are capable of the best and the worst.

14. I'm not going to recommend recklessness, but somewhere, testing yourself and proactively seeking a rite of passage has become necessary because in developed Western countries we have become so addicted to comfort.

A sentence on how to get out of the comfort zone.

15. One's sense of self, and how one shares it, is perhaps the most valuable and poetic gift in one's arsenal of life and art.

Self-awareness, in other words.

16. If there is anything distasteful in the movie business, it is the fornication of my peers.

The promiscuity behind the scenes has always been commented on.

17. I won't have a better day, a more magical moment than the first time I heard my daughter laugh.

Sean Penn remembers this moment with great nostalgia.

18. Regardless of what one considers art to be, in many people there is a desire to express themselves creatively and to feel authentic in doing so.

Perhaps that is what art is all about.

19. I think life is an irrational obsession.

No one in their right mind would want to stay here for long.

20. I'm not good at talking to strangers, whether they're sick kids or not, I'm just not good at it. I'm shy about it.

About your introverted personality.

21. I've lost my taste for acting

In 2018 he talked like this about his weariness towards the film world.

22. The first instinct is love.

The instinct that invites us to reproduce.

23. There is the old idea that where there are options, there is chaos, and where there is no other option, there is clarity. If you have no choice, you must be there, and you must have your heart in it. It leads to a much less self-conscious life.

Great reflection on the possibilities in life.

24. Putting something in a movie because it's in the news is not political to me. A good movie is something political.

If it doesn't have a message, an idea, it's not worth it.

25. I would do anything to get a performance, no malice.

A role is a role.

26. I just want real creative freedom without worrying about, you know, car payments.

Whatever I can afford to live on and pay bills.

27. I think you start preparing the moment you read something.

Talk about reading scripts.

28. I really love making movies.

His devotion to film was extraordinary.

29. Well, the kind of central question, "Do you want to live, and I don't mean stay alive? Do you want to feel your life while you're living it?" You know, there's a place to go that was here before us and it's going to be here after us, so get out there. It doesn't take someone who has a self-important sense of their own attachment to nature to recognize that you're just plain stupid if you don't go out.

The importance of living to the fullest.

30. Parenting is my main interest now. I'm a hands-on parent.

A quote from Sean Penn about his priority in life: raising his children.

31. As a foreign worker in Haiti, speaking for myself, speaking for the workers, our organization is 95% Haitian, but even the foreign workers driving have had minimal safety issues.

About the Caribbean country.

32. I don't want to lie, play games, hurt anyone or hurt myself. You can only move in one direction.

Honesty has only one way.

33. I don't read newspapers too much, just because they tend to make me feel like I have a political obligation which I think is a distraction from what my political offerings will be if I just make my films.

A reflection on your political stance and the mediatization of news.

34. I don't see myself as a different man than I was ten years ago. I have no aspirations to be. It's about where you're putting your energies. That's changing a lot.

Sean Penn looks back and reflects on how his identity has remained more or less intact over time.

35. I'm a little afraid of words like maturity.

An opinion about the concept of maturity, linked to that of responsibility and loss of freedom.

36. In a movie, it's always best to remain invisible as much as possible to keep your cool. I like to whisper to my cameraman, I like to whisper to my actors and anyone else I've whispered something to.

About maintaining a subtle quality when working as an actor.

37. I don't see life as an opportunity to see how far you can go in the pursuit of pain, although I think I've challenged it a bit.

The rejection of a tragic interpretation of life.

38. Reputations are maintained by the outside world, and are also created by it, in general. And they serve as a hell of a device for privacy, because the more people look for something that isn't there, the less likely they are to know who you are. It's like going out with a mask on, without having to exercise your upper body to put it on.

A reflection on privacy.

39. You always have to live longer to nurture something new. It's an obligation to you and to the audience. The personal baggage that comes with being a well-known actor adds to that struggle.

Experience brings psychological richness.

40. I believe this is a great world full of men, women and children struggling to eat, love, work, protect their families, their beliefs and their dreams.

A positive perception of the families of the world.

41. Try to do the best for what you are paid to do.

Concentrating on what motivates us is the way to make the best progress.

42. The two films I made, wrote and directed hold a special place for you.

A personal appreciation of the actor's professional experience.

43. All I need is some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.

An ideal landscape to relax in.

44. I don't have any particular emotions about working with a specific director or actor at the moment.

There is not always an emotional charge associated with working with someone.

45. I believe that if you want good things to happen for a country like Haiti, then you must provide the circumstances in which Haitians can do so.

Beyond the will are the material possibilities to carry out useful measures.

46. There is a kind of sense of truth and reconciliation that is not formalized, but is understood and accepted. Haitians are Haitians and there is an inherent loyalty that is very forgiving.

About that which is not questioned.

47. I think I have not yet succeeded in playing the role of the retired actor, and I would like to work on that.

Another of this actor's curiosities.

48. I'm a big Woody Allen fan. Good movie, bad movie, it doesn't matter, I just like his movies.

A kind of movies that have their own scale of quality.

49. The one thing you can count on in Hollywood, in general, is cowardice.

The vocation to be commercial leads to a lack of honesty and commitment, according to this artist.

50. Everything I was able to do with those experiences certainly contributes to everything I can do as a director. The corruption in that is that most of what I acted on in the last 10 years was stealing film school time from these guys. Those were the people I thought I could learn from as a director.

Learning works two ways.

51. The advice you give to young directors is to go out and become a version of a successful film actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick, Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come to offer you films. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking.

About starting out in the industry.

52. I don't think there are climate skeptics. I think there are people who indulge in a culture of what can be reduced to Fox network thinking. That has nothing to do with policy that applies to protecting quality of life in any sense. It's like talking to a cult member.

Criticism of a way of thinking dependent on big headlines.

53. When you act in a film, you are inevitably surrounded by people you didn't choose, even the painter. I like being able to choose the family I'm waking up in the morning that will make this group strive to tell a story that applies to what's interesting to me at that stage of my life.

You don't get to make decisions about everything that happens.

54. If you're willing to put two thoughts into one image, then you're already ahead of the game.

On the creative process of storytelling.

55. At this stage, what would be gratifying would be if audiences wanted to watch.

Opinion about the motivations of the general public.

56. I regret that my interview with El Chapo has not sparked the debate on the war on drugs.

One of Sean Penn's phrases that refer to his appreciation of the impact of his work.

57. It's a close-up of my feelings. That place moves me. And I don't mean my country; it's part of our shared natural world that happens to be particular to the feeling of where my storytelling inclinations come from and my own history of being a kind of rat and traveling.

About a common homeland.

58. I have never been one to feel what they call stage fright.

A curiosity about Sean Penn's way of being.

59. I can make a better living as an actor than as a director. Although I would certainly prefer to direct films.

Two professions that provide different incentives.

60. I love acting, really my favorite people are actors.

On the relationship between pleasure and the work of this actor.

61. I'll tell you what I'd probably prefer to have happen less and less: actors I know and respect in shampoo commercials. Or modeling.

Personal opinion about the public image of professional colleagues.

62. Accomplishing what you start is the reason you start something.

A way of looking at what motivates us.

63. I can always see the light in any situation. It's just the way I'm made.

Sean Penn talks about his propensity for optimism.

64. In any film I'm in, I speak my mind.

Statement of intent based on honesty.

65. What's very close in the process is writing and acting, not directing. Directing is very different.

A way of classifying different creative jobs in the film world.

66. I don't think you can get away with putting your talents in the toilet bowl and not having them go away.

Using one's artistic talents to create mediocre products takes its toll.

67. Not many good films are being made.

An opinion about the state of cinema today.

68. Marriage isn't easy, but it's great most of the time.

About life together between two people in love.

69. Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive strike against a separate sovereign nation may well prove to be more temporary medicine.

Arguments against war and unnecessary deaths.

70. I lost a friend I was fortunate to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela.

One of the samples of the extent to which Sean Penn has not stayed away from politics in his statements.