My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.
What other people think of me is not my business.
When life takes away, something of greater value is always given in return.
The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. ...I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned.
When prescribing one of the drugs I take, my doctor warned me of a common side effect: exaggerated, intensely vivid dreams. To be honest, I've never really noticed the difference. I've always dreamt big.
And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance... ...One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father.
I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.
By the time I entered high school, I had forsaken academics altogether in favor of my burgeoning acting career.
The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.
Teenagers blithely skip off to uncertain futures, while their parents sit weeping curbside in the Volvo, because the adolescent brain isn't yet formed enough to recognize and evaluate risk.
The laughs mean more to me than the adoration. If two girls walk up to me and one says 'you're cute', I'll say thank you, but I appreciate it much more when the other one says 'you make me laugh so much'.
I mean, I enjoy my work as an actor. But to make a difference in people's lives through advocacy and through supporting research - that's the kind of privilege that few people will get, and it's certainly bigger than being on TV every Thursday for half an hour.
I believe that the majority of times the scale tilts toward the good. It's this amazing thing that rolls on and if we get in the flow of it, that's God. And if we fight it, if we swim the other way, we're swimming away from the purest expression of this life.
The least amount of judging we can do, the better off we are.
So I never spend a lot of time analyzing why people respond to my work. But I think that it's just the joy, a passion for life, that I think has always been in my characters. Beyond that, I'm just grateful for it.
If I don't get food in my mouth, I'm still happy. If my pants are round my ankles, as long as I don't get arrested for indecent exposure, I'm happy. I'm worried about keeping my hair, not how it's combed.
One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
If you have doubts about someone, lay on a couple of jokes. If he doesn't find anything funny, your radar should be screaming. Then I would say be patient with people who are negative, because they're really having a hard time.
Pity is a benign form of abuse.
So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy's big challenge is not having a Parkinson's patient for a husband. It's having me for a husband. I happen to be a Parkinson's patient.
