100 Quotes by Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves, an enigmatic and versatile actor, has captivated audiences across decades with his unique blend of charisma and depth. Known for his iconic roles in films like "The Matrix" and "John Wick," Reeves has a rare ability to seamlessly transition between action-packed roles and emotionally nuanced characters. His understated demeanor and genuine nature have endeared him to fans around the world. Beyond his acting prowess, Reeves's philanthropic efforts and humble approach to fame have earned him a reputation as a down-to-earth celebrity, one who uses his platform to inspire acts of kindness and positivity. His enduring popularity stands as a testament to the fact that, in an industry often characterized by excess, authenticity and integrity can truly resonate with audiences.
Keanu Reeves Quotes
Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things.
I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it's not like I am hopeless.
The recognition of the law of the cause and effect, also known as karma, is a fundamental key to understand how you've created your world, with actions of your body, speech and mind. When you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life. It is incredibly empowering to know that your future is in your hands.
Sometimes simple things are the most difficult things to achieve.
You have to change your life if you’re not happy, and wake up if things aren’t going the way you want.
Art is about trying to find the good in people, and making the world a more compassionate place.
I guess living without love, without experiencing it or being able to give it is pretty strong punishment.
I’m a Virgo; it’s in my sign to be hard on myself.
The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.
Positive energy brings good feelings, and dark energy often means harm. But the destruction in dark energy is also a subtle aspect of construction, like how even forest fires have their benefits. Sometimes enemies are our best teachers, people can learn from their mistakes, destruction sometimes means rebirth.
You need to be happy to live, I don't.
I thank the earth and the sky everyday for the opportunities I’ve had.
I'm sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.
I'm a meathead, man. You've got smart people, and you've got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb.
I went with an exorcist for a bit. I just want to know really practical things, like how do you hold someone possessed by the devil.
I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.
What sort of girls do i like? - They are all angels.
Multi-culture is the real culture of the world - the pure race doesn’t exist.
All the dreams I dream are nightmares and those nightmares are the ones I live.
There's nothing wrong with being gay, so to deny it is to make a judgment.
Tattoos are interesting, but at the same time they are also a mask - you are exhibiting your past life on your body.
I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.
It's always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you're seeing the most beautiful thing on God's Earth.
Life is good when you have a good sandwich.
People were saying that David Geffen and I had gotten married and it just blew me away. Not that they thought I was gay, but that they thought I could land a guy that hot.
Money buys you the freedom to live your life the way you want.
The impact of falling in love for the first time has a special place in our arhitecture.
One of the aspects I like about the film is that there is a kind of emotional, psychological discussion during the storytelling, ... Before taking a drug, go through yourself, experience yourself, all your hopes and fears in your own time. Before the pharmacology, do the psychology.
Grief changes shape, but it never ends. (Meaning)
Nothing ever truly dies. The universe wastes nothing, everything is simply transformed.
I always felt a bit alone and isolated from other people...I did a lot of pretending as a child. It was my way of coping with the fact that I didn't feel like I fit in.
Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don't have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.
And it's easy to stay grounded. The ground is very close. And we walk on it every day.
Life and art had a nice parallel, in the sense of coming together as strangers who are separate in prison who need to work together, getting to know each other.
Speed' and 'Point Break' were a lot of running and jumping, and then 'The Matrix Trilogy' had a lot of fights and wire work and green screen elements.
Money doesn't mean anything to me. I've made a lot of money, but I want to enjoy life and not stress myself building my bank account. I give lots away and live simply, mostly out of a suitcase in hotels. We all know that good health is much more important.
There's a lot of great writing, and characters, and stories being told in television nowadays. And much more than there used to be. The opportunities to tell stories, because of the opportunities to show content. And so it's drawing actors from cinema, movie actors, actors to where there's a lot of opportunities to where you can tell stories.
We are the sum of who we are. We pick certain things at certain moments that influenced us.
Eventually, it came to this place like, "I'd like to direct, but I need to find the story to tell." Man of Tai Chi became the story to tell.
Energy can't be created or destroyed, and energy flows. It must be in a direction, with some kind of internal, emotive, spiritual direction. It must have some effect somewhere.
Violence is sometimes a very practical solution but I don't think it is the ultimate solution. Owning a gun is not OK for me. But I could argue both sides. Why shouldn't people own them? I'm not fundamentally against citizens having access to a weapon but I think it has complications. It's probably not the wisest idea. Obviously, it has consequences. Personally, I do not own a weapon.
Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things but yeah I can imagine that you can kind of - I think it depends on one's psychological state. I think there are some people who are on the internet and can fall in love and seem to be in a certain psychological state and other people who are - who couldn't quite do that.
When the people you love are gone, you're alone.
You know what is a nice thought? Retirement.
Our dreams can teach us, instruct us, confuse us... sometimes I think they look to be considered. And in terms of like, they are an opportunity and I think they most certainly could be utilized to focus, to try and achieve - whether it's looking for someone, or influencing us, or inspiring us.
I cried over beauty, I cried over pain, and the other time I cried because I felt nothing. I can't help it. I'm just a cliché of myself.
Letters are something from you. It's a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.
It's fun to be hopelessly in love. It's dangerous, but it's fun.
I really took it in-house. The Constantine character has a kind of flesh-and-blood practical look at things that would seem, other people would use the word, occult or spiritual. But here, demons are real. So for me it was more taking it from the film itself. I didn't really need to go outside the piece itself to inform me because the perspective on it, what the character does, was provided by the script.
I had the classic 40 meltdown, I did. It's embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.
The inspiration really comes first from the character and the story. That vision of what the story is, and what the character is, the world that they inhabit and what the story wants to tell. That's really what inspires me.
How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I'll say that. Wonder and terror.
Kissing someone is pretty intimate, actually very intimate, and your heart always kind of skips a beat before you do that.
I'm Mickey Mouse. They don't know who's inside the suit.
I hope I don't become just an animation [with a digital film].
Luxury is the opportunity to experience quality, be it a place, a person or an object.
The blues have always had some of the best times, best feelings I’ve ever had.
Performing an exorcism was like changing your oil. It's a drag, but necessary.
In my quiet, I was working something out.
I'm older and older. With any experience you have, you know more about yourself.
Fame is drag. The paparazzi culture is more pervasive than it used to be. On the positive side, it’s nice not to have to worry about bills.
The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.
A relationship is an imaginative act, it's an act of creation. Someone said to me the other day that a relationship between a person and a kid is unconditional; but the relationship between adults, to each other, is conditional, in a sense. But that condition can be the best kind.
You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand.
I hope I get the bliss. And I know I'm going to have to work for it. But I've got to say, really, I have no kind of, can I say "secular religiosity"? I don't have a denominational sight.
I don't know any real jiu-jitsu or judo or anything. I do movie kung fu. With that, you can fake a punch, but you can't really fake a judo throw. You can get help from the person who you're throwing because they can kind of launch themselves.
I wish I could say something classy and inspirational, but that just wouldn't be our style. ... Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory... lasts forever.
I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.
Sometimes, with the scale of a film, it's like when I walked on the sets of "The Matrix," especially in "Reloaded," there was the city square, or in "Revolutions" with some of the machine world, you're like, "Wow, this is a big playground," which is fun to watch. But the acting experience and the collaborating and creating the world, working on the piece, they're the same joys.
Mortality is very different when you're 20 to when you're 50.
"Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, 'It's gone, and I'm better.' They're wrong."
So many people have that relationship. The companionship. The connection. To our - to other beings, our pets. I hate to call them pets. But you know, to other creatures that we share our lives with.
I attempt to connect with my muse and go on demon rides.
It's hard to act in the morning. The muse isn't even awake.
Anything where there's great enthusiasm, and a place to come share what you think is cool.
I was hopeless at high school - I failed everything but Latin.
When I work on a film, you know, I try to get or inhabit the body of the character -from the vision of the directors or how i think the character should be - so if it's a film like SPEED, you hit the gym, you get to do some, train with SWAT People, hehe, but in general, I'm really focused and dedicated, and then in regular life, I don't go to the gym as often.
I've been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.
On a good night, I get underwear, bras, and hotel-room keys thrown onstage... You start to think that you're Tom Jones.
But I did 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.' They made a cereal out of it, so once you've had a cereal, it doesn't get much more surreal than that. Surreal cereal.
The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew's cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo's choice to know the truth. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.
I think the form, the Hollywood movie, I think the quality is obviously always going to be there and I think that the question of taste, there's always a question of taste.
But, you know, it's still a drag to get your picture taken when you're eating a sandwich. It's a downer.
Basically it starts with four months of training, just basic stretching, kicking and punching. Then you come to the choreography and getting ready to put the dance together.
Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don't have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.
Here comes 40. I'm feeling my age and I've ordered the Ferrari. I'm going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.
The acting experience and the collaborating and creating the world, working on the piece, they're the same joys.
It's the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.
When I think about him, I think about him as John and John Wick. I think of John Wick being the assassin part of John. I would say that guy has strong will; never gives up; he's kind; and there's honor about him. He's also a man of strength. There are even some vulnerabilities to him. Most importantly, he's good at his job.
And of course to work with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and work with a wonderful, beautiful script directed by Nancy Meyers, it was really for me a dream come true.
Hallelujah! Amen! Christianity is so inherent in western story-telling, you can't really get around it. But it wasn't something that drew me to it more or less.
I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.
But I think we're also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They've seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There's so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.
You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it's been something I've been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it's something I hope to continue because it's interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.
I've been pleased to work with so many wonderful stars through the years. This has been an amazing journey. I hope it continues.
When we talk about how movies used to be made, it was over 100 years of film, literal, physical film, with emulsion, that we would expose to light and we would get pictures.
I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.
I mean, I went to a Catholic boys school for a year, but that was to play hockey. Religion class was quite contentious for me.
I'm not a photographer, so I didn't get into F-stops or ND filters or background, foreground, cross-light, all that stuff. But I was interested in the camera and the lenses. That's the world that I'm moving in, in terms of acting and giving a performance.
When I don't feel free and can't do what I want I just react. I go against it.
Because we're actors we can pretend and fake it, but I'd rather the intimate investment was authentic.
Environmental issues are on everyone's mind. It's part of our culture now and I can only applaud and laud anyone who is doing what they can and raising awareness.
I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.
It carried quite a wallop. I have all the classic symptoms. Reflection. Where am I now? Where have I come from? What's important? Dealing with the moment of a different kind of feeling for mortality. Shifting of the body. Contextualizing or reevaluating behaviors and values. All those kinds of things.
I mean really wonderful. In teaching. Personal epiphanies. About life. About different perspectives-help with different perspectives that you have. You know what I mean? Relationships to nature. Relationships with the self. With other people. With events.
If we're talking about the science fiction or action genres, I've always tried when I could to do them in a way that's not just cookie-cutter - that they bring something fresh or original to it, have some kind of ideas to it. I've been fortunate, in some sense, to do those kinds of movies that are unique.
I used to have nightmares that they would put 'He played Ted' on my tombstone.
I like meeting directors. It can be helpful because sometimes when you meet filmmakers you find out if you like them and if they like you, and that is important in terms of considering a role. Choosing a role is all about whether I relate to the role and the story really. That's the criteria.
I was always interested - I mean, it's kind of part of your job - I was always interested in the camera.
I don't know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It's also changing how we're telling stories.
I like writing songs. I like the camarderie of the and. I like touring. I love playing bass. And then there's free beer.
I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'
You know what, I'd done an interview show when I was like 16 or 17. One of my first jobs. I did interviews for this television show in Toronto.
I guess I'm not really involving my imagination to that of a circumstance or happening - I'm just kind of acknowledging it as an existence.
John Wick does different techniques. Everything is available to him. There isn't one way of working a weapon. I like the reload with the flick going outside. That movement of getting rid of the magazine is to go sideways with it.
Abstract expression is so solid, so successful and recognizable, but there's a mystery about the artists that goes into it, a fetishism about the artists themselves and who they were.
I am waiting for the right story to tell. Just like 'Man of Tai Chi' just seemed to be the right story to tell. So I'm looking for that. Because I really love directing. I love developing the story. I love actors. I love the cinema of it, the way that you tell a story visually.
I think - I don't know, maybe it's nostalgia. But the choice, losing the choice to be able to use film is going to be - it's gone. It's going to be gone.
I have a producing partner named Stephen Hamel, and we've been trying to generate material.
The serialization through the Internet or through digital portals, means of ways of communicating, and I think that's great.
How do people relate to movies now, when they're on portable devices or streaming them? It's not as much about going to the movies. That experience has changed.
― Keanu Reeves Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
