Rob Lowe Quotes

Eleven days before 9/11, I was on a plane with the 9/11 hijackers who were carrying out a dry run.

When I was filming ‘The Outsiders,’ my idea of success was getting the next Martin Scorsese movie.

I’ve had years of psychiatry, and I ask about every six months – it’s sort of like getting your oil checked – I ask, ‘I’m not an actual narcissist, am I?’ The learned men of psychiatry assure me that I meet none of the medical criteria.

Tom Ford, who is my all-time favourite, once said to me, ‘Here’s the thing about dress shirts, Rob. You need white, and you need black.’ ‘What about blue,’ I asked. He said, ‘Have you ever seen Cary Grant in a blue dress shirt?’

I wouldn’t be where I am today without my mistakes. Particularly my mistakes. Exclusively my mistakes.

I’ll never forget one of those things that my father said to me. My father said: ‘You know what? We have had so many amazingly positive experiences that we would have never had because you’re famous. We can stand to have a couple negatives ones, too.’

I feel pressures to stay relevant. To stay interesting and interested. To stay at the top of my game and expand.

I always wanted that house where everybody wants to go, full of energy, dogs, music, fun.

Equality for everybody is great. That would be amazing.

I’ve always been involved in politics, since I was 8 or 9 years old. I sold Kool-Aid for McGovern – I could always pick a winner.

I’m a political junkie.

I have never felt at any point in my life, good or bad, any ill will ever from the man or woman on the street.

A few years ago, I got to a point where I realised that the only way you can tell someone’s age is how they live their life. The candles on the cake mean absolutely nothing.

I like the nexus of Bollywood and Hollywood. I’m actually shocked that there isn’t more of a meld between our two industries.

If you are worried about what people think of you, you should go into politics. Real actors take chances.

I like doing things that are different, unexpected, and where I feel that either the role feels like a natural fit for me or it’s a really big swing that I don’t know if I’m going to connect on.

Cannes is a little bit like French wine. There are certain years that people prefer over others.

I look at it like this: that if Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written two or three plays about the Kennedy family, and actors would traditionally play JFK like they Hamlet or King Lear. They just would. I mean, people have played JFK, and they’ll play him long after I have.

It’s a little bit of a ‘if you can’t beat ’em – join ’em’ mentality for me when I think about Twitter.

Marriage is becoming sort of fake. It’s almost like a handbag. Everybody wants the newest, greatest and latest. It becomes an event, and it’s definitely a status symbol in our society. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be; it absolutely should be – but you shouldn’t be focusing on that.

Things that I consider bad qualities, I always try and figure out where they are coming from. I don’t consider ambition to be a bad one. It’s served me very well in my life. Very well.

Can we understand – just for the record, we do need the government for a lot of big ticket items.

I’ve been on TV a long time, and I’ve never had a catch phrase.

If you treat China like a foe, surely she will become one.

What’s gratifying about West Wing is that everybody told us that it couldn’t be done – that the man or woman on the street didn’t care about politics. But if you set things up correctly, people don’t have a problem with it.

The first private space of my own wasn’t a dorm room; it was a hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I’d like to build a TV company for myself.

Being in a successful marriage is no different than being cast in a successful movie. It’s all about who you pick; in that first moment, did you pick the right person? I think you need to pick somebody who’s more interested in being married than in getting married.

As an actor and a fledgling director, I’m used to making snap decisions that I’ll have to live with.

I have a lot of great memories, but I can’t imagine anything more exciting than the life I have now.

Guys are really lucky. We become our authentic selves the older we get.

Directors are not worried about casting beautiful women, but they are not sure that they want to cast great-looking men. My looks have prevented people from seeing my work.

Like most guys, I don’t come to beauty regimes naturally. I’m dragged kicking and screaming by the best in the world.

For guys, I don’t think you’re ever ready… I don’t think you wake up and go, ‘You know, today’s the day I’m going to get married. By God, I’m ready. My house is in order, and it is time.’

I am terrible with people’s names.

My deep dark secret is that I was a nerd in school. I liked the theater. I liked to study. I wasn’t very good at sports.

I learned to focus on what’s real rather than imagined; on not letting feelings drive the bus; on being courageous and honest; on putting my total effort into something and not worrying about the result.

I had long ago become a creation, a public image made to be consumed, piled on top of a precarious shell of a little boy wanting to be loved.

I’m a true centrist: my beliefs put me in the middle… You know what happens to people who drive in the middle of the road? They get run over.

When you’re writing personal stories, you have to be totally uncompromising – to the extent that you can be – about yourself. I know that if I am uber-uncompromising with myself, that gives me some latitude to write about others.

I’m what you would call an ‘independent moderate.’

By making more people aware of lymphoma, Worldwide Lymphoma Awareness Day hopes to save lives by increasing early diagnosis and suitable treatment.

I don’t flip. I don’t even dive into a pool – straight cannonball for me. No, thanks.

When I started on ‘The West Wing,’ that was at a time when this was still a stigma, because movie stars didn’t do TV. Now, every movie star is desperate to find their ‘True Detective.’

I am still in love with my wife.

For sure, without question, the writing is better on TV pound for pound than movies because the businesses have changed so much. So all the great writers would rather work for TV, and they do.

I’m a registered Independent.

Temperamentally, Sam and I are very much alike. He’s a lawyer, my father’s a lawyer, and I always wanted to play one. On so many levels the role just felt right. I fell in love with it as I would a woman.

Look, I owns guns.

Television is populated with commitment-phobes.

I like all of John Carpenter’s movies. ‘The Thing’ is my favorite.

My roles in comedies from ‘Austin Powers’ to ‘Tommy Boy’ to ‘Wayne’s World,’ were sort of comedic ‘straight man’ parts. My character on ‘Parks & Recreation’ is the comic relief in a comedy. To play a character that appears strictly for laughs is sort of new for me and really fun.

I was a child of the ’80s.

Getting married isn’t going to make your relationship better. It’s just a ceremony.

Somewhere in my callow, misspent youth, I was smart enough to marry my best friend.

I would’ve loved Jack Kennedy. I would’ve loved to have campaigned for him and supported him. I wish there were more like him today.

Children change you. They really do.

I don’t like being taken for granted anywhere in life. I don’t want my vote taken for granted.

I’ve been around for so long, people have their perceptions of me: good, bad or indifferent.

I’m not unashamed to say that I like movies that make me verklempt.

The Kennedys are our royals.

The challenge as a parent is letting your kids fail in the right ways because that’s where we do most of our learning.

I never get bored talking about themes dealing with ambition, leadership and what it means to be an American. I love that stuff. I just love it. I’ve loved it ever since I was on ‘The West Wing.’

The ’90s were a time of building for me. Building a life that was sober, drained of harmful, wasteful excess and manufacturing in its place a family of my own.

I’ve been lucky enough in ‘The West Wing’ and ‘Brothers & Sisters’ to talk about the issues that are important to me with none of the awful mud-slinging or public scrutiny you have in politics.

My life and the lives of many across the world have been deeply affected by lymphoma.

It’s funny what actors take issue with. Some won’t do parts where animals are in jeopardy; some won’t ever play anyone remotely unlikable – ‘Heroes only, please.’ Some won’t do violence. I have no such qualms.

I believe in ceremony. I think ceremony is important, pomp and circumstance, tradition. I’m into those things.

Before you could actually have face-lifts, they would pull your skin around the back of your head with rubber bands, where they would tape it. And then you’d have to wear a wig over it to hide the rubber bands. It was not the most comfortable.

JFK is a role I’ve always dreamt of playing.

I had met my now wife, Sheryl, and was attempting my first try at monogamy, which was not really in my nature at the time, and I wasn’t able to do it.

The first shooter video game stuff which – look, admittedly, I missed that generationally, so it’s not a thing for me. I’ve never played them. I don’t really get it. My kids do.

David Blum burned a lot of bridges. He burned people early in their careers. He took on the wrong people, though. He’s not Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe, he’s David Blum living in a cheap flat.

I don’t think the Internet should be immune to the standing laws of countries.

I try to be authentically who I am.

I love London.

The minute you start making calculations about what people will think of you as a person based on your work as an actor, you’re on the road to becoming a bad one.

I have had a lot of blessed, interesting things happen to me and have bumped up against some amazing people.

I like the tradition of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances and how they react to events which force them to be heroic in a way that is not in their natures.

I like the way you can circumvent the media gatekeepers and go right to the people. That’s my favorite thing about Twitter.

I’ll be sober ten years and married nine soon.

I loved fun. I spent my whole life in search of fun. I have not given up that part of myself.

Sun Valley is one of my favorite spots.

I am the guy dressing up in, you know, the caveman outfit for the kids’ birthday parties.

I only pray when it suits my own needs. I’m not proud about that.

My thing is personal freedoms: freedoms for the individual to love whom they want, do with what they want. In fact, I want the government out of almost everything.

I love acting so much that I don’t want to give that up.

I’ve said before that the common perception that all good actors should be good liars is exactly the opposite; only bad actors lie when they act.