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Chris pine insights

Explore a captivating collection of Chris pine’s most profound quotes, reflecting his deep wisdom and unique perspective on life, science, and the universe. Each quote offers timeless inspiration and insight.

I feel prematurely old. I'm actually having this major belated quarter-life crisis. I'm turning 30 in a couple of weeks. I've been thinking a lot about mortality. A lot about what I'm going to do with my life and how to enjoy it. One of the things I'm going to work on is being more spontaneous, letting go, embracing the beauty of come-what-may.

With film, oftentimes you work in a vacuum and then you get on a high wire and then you try it and then the day's over and that piece of film exists somewhere in a vault for 1000,000 years and that's it.

For me growing up, Christmas time was always the most fantastic, exciting time of year, and you'd stay up until three in the morning. You'd hear the parents wrapping in the other room but you knew that also, maybe, they were in collusion with Santa Claus.

I find it really hard to even read another script while shooting.

I had horrible acne when I was a kid. I felt like a complete and utter ne'er do well and someone who didn't fit in and wasn't handsome. So, I understand implicitly, and with a great amount of empathy, a man or human being that feels that way.

Dating someone on the opposite end of the happy spectrum teaches you an incredible amount of patience.

Life is a beautiful thing. But you're always striving to be better in your art, striving to be heard. And obviously in a movie business, it's striving to be noticed and appreciated.

I'm always surprised reading my old journals. There's this idea that life is hard now, but then I'll reach that moment where it'll change. But there's no summit. It's a constant climb.

After many years of self-flagellation, I've realised that beating myself up doesn't get me anywhere.

My grandmother was an actress too. In the thirties and forties she was under contract with Universal Studios. Crazy credits, lots of them. My dad was also under contract with Universal Studios. And my first film was shot on the same stage they both worked on at Universal.

I definitely have a spiritual outlook. I don't usually read self-help books, but I read a great book by a guy called Wayne Dyer, 'The Power of Intention,' which I loved. I'm not a religious guy, in fact I'm probably agnostic but I thought what this writer had to say was really powerful.

Theatre is so much fun because you do theatre and you have a month of working it out on your own, and then a month of rehearsal, so by the time you get to stage I know where I'm failing and I know where I'm succeeding and your boundaries are pretty concrete.

I'm more cerebral than I want to be.

No matter how bad the individual, everybody has reasons for why they do what they do.

My fans have designated themselves the, uh, 'Pine Nuts.' They're a nutty bunch.

I think it's a very healthy thing to learn from what's happened in the past. But only if you look at what happened and think, 'How could I have dealt with that differently?' Then let it go.

I had a job at this French restaurant, and I hated it. I don't like serving; I don't like getting people ketchup.

I believe in luck and fate and I believe in karma, that the energy you put out in the world comes back to meet you.

I think the most dangerous word in the English language is 'should.' 'I should have done this.' Or 'I should do that.' 'Should' implies responsibility. It connotes demand. Which is just not the case. Life ebbs and flows.

Working together always works together better... it also appeals to a primal, animal thing, which is that humans are social creatures.

I was a shy kid, a late bloomer. At 22, I was probably 16 emotionally.

My brain's not sharp enough to come up with a witty comment.

It's not always the case that things will fall into your lap or that life will be great, but it's all about perspective and having a positive outlook. If something goes wrong you say: "That happened for a reason, what can I learn from that and how can I grow?"

[ The Finest Hours] reminded me a lot of a film I did called Unstoppable in that you have a driving thriller aspect of the film and it's not all that complicated of a story and there's a simple elegance to it. I liked that. It is also driven by a really strong romance and ordinary men doing extraordinary things. I love that.

I work out because that's my job, but what I enjoy about it, beyond the vanity, is the Zen of it. I like getting out of my head, and one great way to do that is to sweat your face off. And to know that, if you're thinking of anything else, you're not working intensely enough.

I think that when you let go and "throw it all away" and stop getting attached and say "whatever happens, happens", you don't invest too much in anything particular, and things work out.

When I got the job I thought about her a lot. Not only was I getting a great job in a really good movie, but it was with Lindsay Lohan. She's so famous and I don't have any of that, I have never experienced that kind of intense scrutiny that she's under, so of course I wondered what it would be like acting opposite her. I can tell you that it's like being with The Beatles. You cannot fathom the kind of attention she gets. It's mind boogling.

I think the desire to be with someone beautiful...I just had such a different experience growing up. To be in a position where you're lauded for things that you don't own - and don't think of yourself as - it's so bizarre.

I talk to myself, especially in the car.

One thing that I do find really sexy is a girl who's good at crossword puzzles.

Work takes up a lot of my brain space. So when I work, it's one thing. I don't have a lot of time to think about dating.

Fear runs our lives a lot of the time. You can face it head-on, or you can hide in your bunker.

I love the stories that have come before, that we know of. I think for me it's always more interesting to start from square one and you take the fundamental pillars of the character and, around that, try to create something new and different.

We tell each other stories so we can understand the world better and there's catharsis and we understand the models of what a hero could be and what the hero's journey as a human being is all about. But unfortunately, I think sometimes those stories too can be very prohibitive and confining.

I grew up in a house where my father went on auditions, and he got some and he lost some, and there were good years and lean years. I didn't expect anything from the business, and that's often a danger in Hollywood, the notion that if you're pretty and have white teeth and just show up for the game then you'll win.

Everything is just make believe. They're just different versions of make believe. I love the period of this movie [The Finest Hours]. I love the '40s. I love the '50s. I love the style of the clothes. I love how the women looked. I love the dances. I love the music. I love the amber of the lights and the cars. I'm in love with all of it.

My nipples could cut glass.

When I was 18 I was an emotional wreck and I couldn't imagine having to deal with some kind of fame.

I don't actually drive trains. I'm an actor.

Even now, I'm better around people who are uncomfortable with themselves, the misfits.

Growing up in a family of actors, what's great about it is that they're very supportive and they understand what it's like to be an actor - the rejections, the highs and lows... and having a common language with them is great because you have shorthand speech.

When you want something enough, it brings out primal emotions. You get into this place of 'must happen, must happen.'

Ignore the naysayers. Really the only option is, head down and focus on the job.

We come from fallible parents who were kids once, who decided to have kids and who had to learn how to be parents. Faults are made and damage is done, whether it's conscious or not. Everyone's got their own 'stuff,' their own issues, and their own anger at Mom and Dad. That is what family is. Family is almost naturally dysfunctional.

It's the fear of not being as good as you want to be. If you give over to that fear, it will sabotage you. As much as I can, I try to use that fear to guide me.

I am critical of myself like everyone else. You go to a movie theater and you are forty feet high. I had bad skin as a teenager and I am a shy person, but I think I am in the perfect business to fight my insecurities. You have to learn to love yourself and say 'I am pretty cool' instead of being so critical. You can easily fall into the trap of doing that.

It opens Wednesday or Friday.

Maybe the realisation of the full human potential is the utopian thing. Maybe that is our collective struggle, is to find a way to get there. But right now it seems like we're duplicating what was written in the Bible, a millennium ago, which is "An eye for an eye." Revenge policy; "If you hit me, we'll hit you back worse"; ad infinitum.

I'm so envious of that genetic wiring that immediately puts a smile on your face. My genetic wiring just puts creases in my eyebrows.

The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don't have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.

Whether you're scared of getting into a relationship; or taking the new job; or a confrontation - you have to size fear up.

Ever since I saw sexy Beast I've been trying to get the cockney thing down.

Women think that men don't talk about their feelings with guys. We do talk to friends about relationships, but it's succinct - 10 minutes, then we move on.

I took part in a theatre festival in Massachusetts two summers after I graduated from college. Then I was in Los Angeles thinking: "I'm going to go to New York." I'd decided that I would not have a chance of a film career, so I was about to make the move. I bought a plane ticket and found a place to live in New York, packed my bags and of course the universe "told me" that I was not meant to go. Suddenly, a week before I was supposed to leave, I had three job offers and one of them was my first movie.

Not a fan of spiders. I saw the movie 'Arachnophobia' which was single-handedly rated in the top three worst choices of my life.

Anybody who's gone through puberty has understood what it feels like to be an outcast and alone.

My touchstone is just fear and anxiety and I know a lot about those two awful emotions.

No one can survive on their own. Thinking you can is ridiculous, especially going into the middle half of the 21st century. To think you can do it alone is just ridiculous.

I think it's not fair to the uniqueness and wonderfulness of the individuals, that we can complement one another greatly, but we are not the source of each other's happiness, especially if you don't know who the hell you're talking to.

I performed and sang at school but as a child it was never anything I was interested in doing professionally.

My nana was an actress, my mom was an actress, and my sister, too. So because I was surrounded by it, it really came naturally.

It feels great to not be the acne-ridden outsider that I felt like when I was in high school. It's a lot more fun being alive now than it was then, I'll say that much.

I don't need to worry about that, that's always there on a slow simmer. The muscle I have to work on is being more present.

As an actor it's easy to be so self-critical, saying to yourself: "Am I good enough? Am I good looking enough? Am I smart enough?" Yet here I am, so I'm lucky.

It's a fun thing for journalists to say that Captain Kirk is the boyfriend role. I'm happy to give a laugh. But it's a really complex story.

I think the first thing that I saw on IMAX was 'The Avengers.' The scope and the size of it are pretty neat, I will say that.

The great thing about theater is that you have so much time to prepare, and to fail, before presenting it to the public. In film, the high-wire act seems to be that much farther up, and the net seems to be less there.

The more you are positive and say: "I want to have a good life." The more you build that reality for yourself; by creating the life that you want.

I still have anonymity, which is great. I can go out anywhere I want and no one ever recognizes me.

I do like dating cynics - they tend to be incredibly funny.

The customer is not always right.

Theater will always be a huge part of my life. The high I get from doing theater is not, quite honestly, matched by many things. I like the fact that when you step out on the stage, for that given night, for better or for worse, you are the master of the boards. I love it to death.

Generally speaking, the more money that's involved in anything, the more people are expecting and hoping that it's not going to fail.

In adolescence, it's 'How do I fit in?' In your 20s, 'What do I want to do?' Your 30s, 'Is this what I'm meant to do?' I think the trick is living the questions. Not worrying so much about what's ahead but rather sitting in the gray area; being okay with where you are. If you can find the parity between 'Where am I going?' and 'What's my purpose?' you've got two pretty solid pillars for your coffee table.

I'm certainly not the lead of the film 'Wonder Woman' and I don't have a problem with that.

I don't know any kid that's not afraid at some point going to bed with the lights off, totally. That's why they make nightlights.