Some people get into this business and they're so afraid to lose anything. They try to protect their position like clinging to a beachhead. These actors end up making really safe choices. I never wanted to go that route. If I go down, I'm going down swinging.
Interpretation
Embrace risks in your pursuits rather than playing it safe.
Matt Damon emphasizes the importance of taking risks and not succumbing to fear of failure in one's career. He contrasts the approach of many actors who settle for safe choices to maintain their positions with his own philosophy of embracing challenges and fighting for success, even if it leads to failure.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing dreams, this quote can inspire the audience to take bold actions.
Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.
You will never solve poverty without solving water and sanitation.
Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage
It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.
If I had a bucket list, I'd say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be No. 1.
There are people who appear in the magazines and I don't know who they are. I've never seen anything they've done and their careers are over already. They're famous for maybe 10 minutes. Real careers, I think, take a long time to unfold.
Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place.
Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heaven and_x000D_ _x000D_ on earth; and he who would be blessed and happy should be from_x000D_ _x000D_ the first a partaker of truth, for then he can be trusted.
Rule, after you have first learned to submit to rule.
How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
Literary Experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege of individuality.. .Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.
You cannot get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have the facts, you cannot make proper judgments about what is going on.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.