B.J. Penn Quotes

When you tell other people to do stuff they don't know how to do, they tend to freak out.

'Zolten' is a common Hungarian name, it's my wife's maiden name and most importantly, it's the name of Dracula's dog.

I'm really happy with all the art that was inspired by religion, and I think I'd be tickled to little tiny pieces if art in the future was inspired by other things.

I will forever stick up for Catholics and Christians in general. With a small number of very horrible exceptions, they do play by the rules.

I was about 12 when I heard my first Lenny Bruce record. He was already dead. But it changed my life and really did change the world.

I've always wanted to make the world a more rational place. I'm still working on it.

If you can just convince the dope people that the gun people are right and the gun people that the dope people are right, we could actually live in a lot more freedom.

I have a very specific definition of censorship. Censorship must be done by the government or it's not censorship.

I have more contact with people who consume, for lack of a better word, my product than any other performers.

I, my own damn self, am not a Tea Party supporter. I disagree with them on social liberties, our overseas wars, Obama's birthplace, Sarah Palin, and the conspicuous absence of tea at their rallies.

I like things matching. I have an upright bass, a drum kit and a grand piano that's the same color. I tend to overthink things.

I like to read in the dark. I like to go into the bathtub, turn out all the lights, and in the dark, read my books.

I love the feeling of shredded wheat. I love healthy bird food with a fun-to-eat feel. Then you spray them with sugar, and I'm there.

Nobody had ever told me that anything could be like this.

There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain.

In separateness only does love learn definition.

Your business as a writer is not to illustrate virtue but to show how a fellow may move toward it or away from it.

I reckon I am a smart aleck, but it is just a way to pass the time.

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

All I've tried to do (with my writing) is capture the essence of my time.

History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that.

Dying--shucks! If you kin handle the living, what's to be afraid of the dying?

You don’t choose a story, it chooses you.

Poets, we know, are terribly sensitive people, and in my observation one of the things they are most sensitive about is money.

My only crime was being a man and living in the world of men, and you don't have to do special penance for that. The crime and the penance, in that case, coincide perfectly. They are identical.

[A]nd soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.

What if angry vectors veer Round your sleeping head, and form. There's never need to fear Violence of the poor world's abstract storm.

Marriage ain't easy, but it's great most of the time.

I can always see light in any situation. It's just the way I'm made.

There is no re-inventing the wheel.

You're always having to live more to fuel something new. It's an obligation to yourself and to the audience. The personal baggage that comes with being a known actor just adds to that struggle.

I've been a road-rat since I got my driver's licence at 16, so I've probably gone across America 20 times.

I just want real creative freedom without worrying about, you know, car payments.

You try to do your best at what you're getting paid for.

You tolerate me. You really tolerate me!

In between, I go broke because I seem to do movies where you're not paid a lot as an actor.

The first instinct is love.

Haiti kind of gets a hold of you.

At this stage, what would be rewarding would be for audiences to want to watch.

The thing that's very close in the process is writing and acting, not directing. Directing's very different.

There is a kind of sense of truth and reconciliation that is non-formalized, but it's understood and accepted. Haitians are Haitians and there is an inherent loyalty that forgives an awful lot.

On any movie I'm involved with, I say what I think.

I don't see myself as a different guy than I was ten years ago. I don't have aspirations to be. It's really about where you're putting your energies. That's changing a lot.

I don't want to lie, play games, hurt somebody, or get hurt. You can only go forward in one direction.

I have a regret that the entire discussion [with El Chapo]... ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the War on Drugs.

I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela.

I'll tell you what I probably would prefer to happen less and less: actors that I know and respect in shampoo ads. Or modeling.

Well, I think that when you direct a movie or write it. And in the case of the two movies I did, I wrote and directed, they occupy a special place for you.

I think that people like the Howard Sterns, the Bill O'Reillys and to a lesser degree the bin Ladens of the world are making a horrible contribution.

Yeah, I had actually tried to stop acting before I made Dead Man Walking.