Jim Carrey Quotes

Monday, April 6, 2009 5:19 | Filled in 4. Other Posts - Overview

Over the years, and just like all celebrities, Jim Carrey has been in a lot of interviews. On this page you can find some of his most famous quotes. Put together, they should give you an insight into the person behind the actor … this is the way he thinks!

“A lot of good love can happen in ten years.” – Jim Carrey.
“After recording a cover of ‘I am the Walrus’: “There! I did it! I defiled a timeless work of art! For my next trick, I will paint a clown face on the Mona Lisa while using the shroud of Turin as a dropcloth. “ - Jim Carrey.
“Always turn your wheel in the direction of the skid. “ (On being asked what his personal motto is) - Jim Carrey.
“Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that ’s really worthwhile.” - Jim Carrey.
“Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.” - Jim Carrey.
“But, you know, you can’t be a star at home.” - Jim Carrey.
“Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority. – Jim Carrey.
“Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.” – Jim Carrey.
“Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.” – Jim Carrey.
“For some reason I did something where I realized I could get a reaction. That was when I broke out of my shell at school, because I really didn’t have any friends or anything like that and I just kind of was going along, and then finally I did this zany thing, and all of a sudden I had tons of friends. – Jim Carrey.
“Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Suess inspired me to try cauliflower.” – Jim Carrey.
I call it a nervous breakthrough… I think people have ways of hiding their emotions; people think their emotions are ugly. But when she finally broke down… I don’t think she had ever done that in her entire life. Her therapist said there was anger there because she felt guilty for giving her son autism… To feel that guilt is the beginning of a healing process (talking about Jenny McCarthy’s anxieties about raising an autistic son) . – Jim Carrey.
“I absolutely want to have a career where you make’em laugh and make’em cry. It’s all theater.” – Jim Carrey.
“I don’t believe in this fairy tale of staying together for ever. Ten years with somebody is enough. In ten years, you can give a lot of love. “ – Jim Carrey.
“I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.” – Jim Carrey.
“I don’t make it in regular channels, and that’s okay for me.” – Jim Carrey.
“I don’t think anybody is interesting until they’ve had the shit kicked out of them. The pain is there for a reason. A lot of times when I was in those depressions, I also had the thing going through my head that this is what I’ve asked for. I’ve prayed to God that I would have depth as an artist and have things to say. I’ve said, No matter what, keep me sane but give me what I need.” – Jim Carrey.
“I don’t think anybody should go through life without a team of psychologists. I have been through times when I’m literally squatting in the living room, having one of those open-throated cries, where you’re crying all the way to your butthole. I always believed I would come out of it, though.” – Jim Carrey.
“I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.” – Jim Carrey.
“I enjoy fame except when I’m with my daughter. Kids stop me all the time and I don’t want her to be jealous of the attention. Also, sometimes I just want to be left alone and I refuse to make rubber faces. That’s when they start asking, ‘What’s the matter, man, don’t you like your job?’ I say, ‘Yeah, I like my job. But I also like having sex, and I’m not going to do that in front of you either.” – Jim Carrey.
“I got a lot of support from my parents. That’s the one thing I always appreciated. They didn’t tell me I was being stupid; they told me I was being funny.” – Jim Carrey.
“I have no intention of giving up my Canadian heritage, and all those who loved and supported me. My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian. “ – Jim Carrey.
“I haven’t been as wild with my money as somebody like me might have been. I’ve been very safe, very conservative with investments. I don’t blow money. I don’t have a ton of houses. I know things can go away. I’ve already had that experience. – Jim Carrey.
“I just want to be killer funny. You know kick ass piss in your pants run out of the theatre and rip you dick off and throw yourself into traffic funny! – Jim Carrey.
“I just want to be myself.” – Jim Carrey.
“I know this sounds strange,Wire Transfer Arizona Bank And Trust style=”font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: ‘Georgia’,’serif’;”> but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me. I was that weird Jim Boy – you know, ‘ Stay away from him.’ Then I suddenly realized that all the shtick I pulled at home could also work at school. I recall the first day that I stood in front of the school and fell up the stairs. People started self-combusting with laughter. I went from ‘Jim’s a geek’ to ‘Jim really is a moron, but we like it!’ From then on, there was no stopping me – I was relentless. Every class became The Jim Carrey Show. I was like a disease in the class. I remember being sent out of the room a lot. The hall became my domain.” – Jim Carrey.
“I love playing ego and insecurity combined.” – Jim Carrey.
“I need privacy. I would think that because what I do makes a lot of people happy that I might deserve a little bit of respect in return. Instead, the papers try to drag me off my pedestal.” – Jim Carrey.
“I praticed making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course. – Jim Carrey.
“I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.” – Jim Carrey.
“I really want to love somebody. I do. I just don’t know if it’s possible forever and ever.” – Jim Carrey.
“I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin’ wealthy.” – Jim Carrey.
“I tend to stay up late, not because I’m partying but because it’s the only time of the day when I’m alone and don’t have to be performing.” – Jim Carrey.
“I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.” – Jim Carrey.
“I try to do something the audience might not have seen before. Like if I’m gonna kiss a girl I wanna kiss her like a girl has never been kissed. Like maybe I would kick her legs out from under her and catch her right before she hits the ground and then kiss her.” – Jim Carrey.
“I used to draw a lot. If my mother would ask me to do something else, I’d have a hairy conniption. I’d just go crazy.” – Jim Carrey.
“I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.” – Jim Carrey.
“I was on Prozac for a long time. It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that, you know, everything’s just OK,” says Carrey. “There are peaks, there are valleys. But they’re all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in. Where you’re not getting any answers, but you’re living OK. And you can smile at the office. You know? But it’s a low level of despair. You know? I rarely drink coffee. I’m very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful.” – Jim Carrey.
“If I had never ventured beyond being a stand-up comic, then I would be sitting in my house today working on my Leonardo DiCaprio impression.” – Jim Carrey.
“If I’m not back in five minutes… just wait longer!” – Jim Carrey.
“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.” – Jim Carrey.
“If you’ve got talent, protect it.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’m a hard guy to live with. I’m like a caged animal. I’m up all night walking around the living room. It’s hard for me to come down from what I do.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’m afraid, I guess, that I won’t be able to watch anymore. Everything I do comes from watching and observing, and I’m concerned that I won’t be able to be the watcher because I’m the watched. I’ve already had so much success, I could quit now and say, ‘Thanks very much, you guys have been more than nice to me,’ but I really would like to keep working and, hopefully, growing and challenging myself.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’m charming, but I dip into the Prozac now and then. “ – Jim Carrey.
“I’m not a huge remake fan but I loved the first movie, and I thought it was more relevant now than it was back then, because of all the Enron-type swindles. I thought it would be a great opportunity to take a shot at all the white-collar creeps and give people a bit of relief, because everyone’s feeling they’re part of a company these days. It’s a good outlet for that frustration.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this. It’s hard for anybody who’s been with me not to feel starved for affection when I’m making love to my ideas. Maybe it’s not meant for me to settle down and be married.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’m the first to admit this whole salary thing is getting out of control. In the final analysis, it’s still about the work. The whole time I was filming The Cable Guy, I kept reminding myself that if a scene didn’t work, the $20 million would bite me in the butt.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’m very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful.” – Jim Carrey.
“It was such a leap in my career when ‘Truman Show’ came along. It’s always been a long process for me insofar as recognition goes, but that’s OK because you appreciate it when it comes.” – Jim Carrey.
“It’s insane … I mean, Nicholson, Hoffman, Jackson, Kline – I don’t see how I can lose. – Regarding his chances at 1998 Golden Globes. – Jim Carrey.
“It’s nice to finally get scripts offered to me that aren’t the ones Tom Hanks wipes his butt with.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’ve arrived at the place if I’m not taking a career risk, I’m not happy. If I’m scared, then I know I’m being challenged.” – Jim Carrey.
“I’ve been dubbed the man most responsible for the dumbing of America, so obviously I don’t put much stock into thoughts like (the theme of the ‘dumbing down’ of contemporary comedy). People love to laugh, and most people can find humor in just about anything, which is great. Trying to label or categorize comedy is ridiculous. I mean, if you laugh at a fart joke, does that make you a moron? I don’t think so. “ – Jim Carrey.
“I’ve tried everything. I’ve done therapy, I’ve done colonics. I went to a psychic who had me running around town buying pieces of ribbon to fill the colors in my aura. Did the Prozac thing.” – Jim Carrey.
“Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn’t trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity.” – Jim Carrey.
“Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them. I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‘I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.’ “ – Jim Carrey.
“Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself.” – Jim Carrey.
“Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they’re eating sandwiches. “ – Jim Carrey.
“Morgan Freeman is so class. He’s so cool. He’s so scary.” – Jim Carrey.
“Most of the time I live with my pain. I have pain but I won’t show it around. I think that’s the nobility of the character. There’s something noble in not spewing on people all the time about your problems. I’m the light guy, so I identified.” – Jim Carrey.
“My dad was like a stage mother he always pushed me to do what I wanted.” – Jim Carrey.
“My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry.” – Jim Carrey.
“My first experience on stage started in second grade. I was in music class and we were practicing for the Christmas assembly. One day I started fooling around by mocking the musicians on a record. The teacher thought she’d embarrass me by making me get up and do what I was doing in front of the whole class. So I went up and did it. She laughed, and the whole class went nuts. My teacher asked me to do my routine for the Christmas assembly, and I did. That was the beginning of the end.” – Jim Carrey.
“My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.” – Jim Carrey.
“My life is not unlike Truman’s. I can’t go anywhere.” – Jim Carrey.
“My mother was a professional sick person; she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It’s just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she’s the daughter of alcoholics who’d leave her alone at Christmas time.” – Jim Carrey.
“My performing started out as a mixture of things. It’s really not all angst and I-gotta-go-onstage-or-I’m-gonna-kill- somebody kind of thing. Some of it is the anger, but it was born from really, truly, just wanting to be special and to be noticed and wanting to make people laugh. It was really born from that, so it comes from a good place. It’s just – the tools are your anger, the tools are your sadness, the tools are your joy, the tools are voices, faces – the tools are all those things.” – Jim Carrey.
“My report card always said, ‘Jim finishes first and then disrupts the other students’.” – Jim Carrey.
“My teacher in the seventh grade told me that if I didn’t fool around during class, I could have 15 minutes at the end of the day to do a comedy routine. Instead of bugging everybody, I’d figure out my routine. And at the end of the day, I’d get to perform in front of my entire class. I thought it was really smart of her. It’s amazing how important that was.” – Jim Carrey.
“New management came in and they cleaned everybody out — so we hit the skids. We lived in a van, so I kind of know what happens to people when this happens.” – Jim Carrey.
“One thing I hope I’ll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.” – Jim Carrey.
“Originality is really important.” – Jim Carrey.
“People need motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation.” – Jim Carrey.
“Second year in a row — what’s going on here, man? … I’m the establishment I once rejected. … I’m the Tom Hanks of the Golden Globes.” – Jim Carrey.
“Some nights it was a melee, literally, where I’d be standing trying to defend myself for what I was doing. People would be screaming at me to do my old act, and getting actually violent and angry at me.” – Jim Carrey.
“That’s the trouble with being me. At this point, nobody gives a damn what my problem is. I could literally have a tumor on the side of my head and they’d be like, ‘Yeah, big deal. I’d eat a tumor every morning for the kinda money you’re pulling down. “ – Jim Carrey.
“The comedian’s who inspired me are, like, Dick Van Dyke. Loved Dick Van Dyke. Jimmy Stewart. Well, he wasn’t a comedian, but he was a character that I really, really liked. I learned how to say ‘F***’, by listening to Richard Pryor. No. But there’s guys like that who opened doors to realms for me. Like Richard Pryor and guys like Sam Kinison. You watch them and then you go, well maybe your gotta give up a little more to, you know, push the buttons these days.” – Jim Carrey.
“The money can be a hindrance to someone like me because the danger is that you start thinking, ‘Is that a $20 million take?’ That kind of thing, and being self-critical.” – Jim Carrey.
“There was a time when people said, ‘Jim, if you keep on making faces, your face will freeze like that.’ Now they just say, ‘Pay him!’
“There’s new territory, there’s new places to go, new things to explore. Why stay back there? … Maybe it will take three films to find another character that is really totally original, but I’ve got a lifetime, so why waste it just repeating myself.” – Jim Carrey.
“Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.” – Jim Carrey.
“We had problems like all families but we had a lot of love. I was extremely loved. We always felt we had each other.” – Jim Carrey.
“What I have in common with the character in ‘Truman’ is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.” – Jim Carrey.
“When the first big paycheque with Dumb And Dumber hit, I went: ‘Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?’ But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.” – Jim Carrey.
“Ya know what I do almost every day? I wash. Personal hygiene is part of the package with me.” – Jim Carrey.
“You know, I live a monastic lifestyle. No, I do. I do live in extremes, basically. I go back and forth. Once every six months, I’ll have a day where I eat more chocolate than has ever been consumed by a human being.” – Jim Carrey.
”I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‘Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.’“ – Jim Carrey.