Explore Quotes by David Duchovny

98% of the people in the world are harmless and wish you well, but it only takes one person who doesn't. That's what you're constantly on guard against.

Humility is considered an un-masculine quality.

I don't make decisions based on money.

You become tyrannized by this notion that women must not only be treated equally, but they must never fail.

I wanted to write plays. I was at Yale graduate school at the time for English literature, not for acting... I liked the idea of collaboration, and I thought if I'm gonna write plays, I should learn something about speaking the lines that I might try to write.

'The X-Files,' as I recall, we didn't know really what we were until the middle of the first year. You know, so if we'd been cancelled, you get cancelled before you mature into what it is you can actually be, which is too bad.

I think we all choose our style from the ether and whatever is out there.

I feel like I came to acting late in a way.

I'm trying to protect what I advertise. That's my stance on any kind of self-expression.

The worst thing a man can admit is 'I'm not 100 percent fulfilled by my family.' But it doesn't mean he doesn't love his family. I love my family, but I still want to work; I still want challenges. It took me a while to fall in love with the responsibility of family life, and it was a deep thing when I did.

I won't look online. The whole fan thing makes me self-conscious, which is not to say I don't appreciate it or understand it. If Mickey Mantle were around, I'm sure I'd have a ton of questions to ask him that might make him uncomfortable. I get it. That doesn't mean it's not really awkward.

I've made so many mistakes. But it is my feeling that you learn from failures, so I welcome them as often as I can.

I think people are always trying to demystify whatever acting is, so they want to know what your method is.

I think there are ways in which shows can pop their heads up a little bit in the morass of everything you can watch.

I think of myself as more of a comic person. I don't know about a comic actor.

I love the ocean, wide-open space and trees, but I'm not a gardener or anything like that. I think I may be, eventually. I was raised in the city, so I don't have that skill set, but my heart is more with the dirt than the concrete. It's an unrequited love with nature - a one-way love affair.

I'm turning into a stricter dad.

I don't mind close-ups, I like them, but they're kind of forceful - you see a lot, you get a lot of information in a close-up. There's less mystery.

Willie Mays was the best ever. When I was in college I once made a catch like the one Mays made over his head. Sometimes when I'm lying in bed at night I think about it. It still makes me warm.

You can't control your mind. Why would you want to?

There are certain things I learned when I first started learning about acting, to try and place the character physically and emotionally. And the way you place them emotionally is often with humor.