Hello and Welcome. This page is a collection of 35 quotes from Greenlights book by Matthew McConaughey that I liked and saved while reading this book. I hope you will like these quotes too.
By the way, I am Deepak Kundu, an avid book reader, quotes collector and blogger.
Quotes on Life
- I believe everything we do in life is part of a plan. Sometimes the plan goes as intended, and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s part of the plan.
- Life is our résumé. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?
- I’ve always gotten away with more in life than in my dreams.
Quotes on Travel
- Travel and humanity have been my greatest educators. They have helped me understand the common denominator of mankind. Values. Engage with yourself then engage with the world. Values travel. And sometimes we get a stamp in our passport just by crossing the street.
- I’ve never cared much for destinations. The idea of landing is too finite for my imagination and sense of song. Give me a direction and a sixteen-lane highway with room to swerve and explore along the way. Like jazz, I prefer to see life as a river.
- Behind the steering wheel has always been my favorite seat, and driving the highways of America has always been my ideal office.
Quotes on Truth
- Knowin the truth, seein the truth, and tellin the truth, are all different experiences.
- I believe the truth is only offensive when we’re lying.
- God, when I cross the truth, give me the awareness to receive it, the consciousness to recognize it, the presence to personalize it, the patience to preserve it, and the courage to live it.
Other Quotes
- I’m not perfect; no, I step in shit all the time and recognize it when I do. I’ve just learned how to scrape it off my boots and carry on.
- We are all made for every moment we encounter. Whether the moment makes us or we make the moment. Whether we are helpless in it or on top of it, the predator or the prey. We are made for that moment.
- We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing.
- Knowing who we are is hard. Eliminate who we’re not first, and we’ll find ourselves where we need to be.
- We need finites, borders, gravity, demarcations, shape, and resistance, to have order. This order creates responsibility. The responsibility creates judgment. The judgment creates choice. In the choice lies the freedom.
- The great man is not all to each, he is each to all. The genius can do anything, but does one thing at a time.
- An honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind, and when we lie down on ours at night, no matter who’s in our bed, we all sleep alone.
- We’re all storytellers in the movie business. That’s what we do. We play make-believe. And when we do it well, we make you believe.
- There’s a difference between art and self-expression. All art is self-expression. All self-expression is not art.
- Common sense is like money and health, once you have it, you have to work to keep it.
- It’s better to play your own game in the business of Hollywood than to do your business playing Hollywood’s game.
- I am good at what I love, I don’t love all that I’m good at.
- Sometimes which choice you make is not as important as making a choice and committing to it.
- We are going to make mistakes – own them, make amends, and move on. Guilt and regret kill many a man before their time.
- If we all made sense of humor the default emotion, we’d all get along better.
- No one can live up to the pedestal we put them on if we always put them on one.
- If I couldn’t do what I wanted, I wasn’t going to do what I didn’t, no matter the price.
- We all have scars, we’ll get more. So rather than struggle against time and waste it, let’s dance with time and redeem it, because we don’t live longer when we try not to die, we live longer when we’re too busy livin.
- I haven’t made all A’s in the art of livin, but I give a damn, and I’ll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.
- We need discipline, guidelines, context, and responsibility early in any new endeavor. It’s the time to sacrifice. To learn, to observe, to take heed. If and when we get knowledge of the space, the craft, the people, and the plan, then we can let our freak flag fly, and create.
- Man is never more masculine than after the birth of his first child. Not macho. Masculine. After his firstborn, a new father’s head, heart, and gut are more aligned than they have ever been.
- Nobody gets in trouble for what they do, they only get into trouble when they get caught. The art is in gettin away with it. The outlaw don’t live on the edges, he lives in the center, cruisin through the slipstream.
- The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life. In time, yesterday’s red light leads us to a greenlight. All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up.
- DNA and work. Genetics and willpower. Life’s a combination. Some get the genes but never the work ethic or resilience. Others work their ass off but never had the innate ability.
- For me, the congas, bongos, and djembe have always been the purest and most instinctual instruments. No sticks, no electricity, no equalizer, no strings, no tools or amendments, just skin to skin with the most analogue spoken language, prayer, and dance known to man – the percussion.
- Days of prosperity make us forget adversity. Good times seem out of reach during the bad ones. Both can seem like final destinations, the summation of our days. Then the cosmic joker plays with our ways, Yesterday’s condition no longer remains, All commas, no periods, all stops, no stays, the pleasure’s for rent and so is the pain.