Dude Jeff Bridges Quotes

Hope's interesting, isn't it? I can't turn hope off, it's hopeless.

You’ve got to take care of yourself on the path, not just when you cross the goal line, because don’t forget, wherever you are, that’s the goal line.

Being alive, you have to do something. Not doing anything is also some kind of action.

Some people say you have to work with everything, but there’s a time and a place. If it feels like a knot, wait. It will come up again when you and the universe are ready.

A famous Japanese Zen master, Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, said that unless you can explain Zen in words that a fisherman will comprehend, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Some fifty years ago a UCLA professor told me the same thing about applied mathematics. We like to hide from the truth behind foreign-sounding words or mathematical lingo. There’s a saying: The truth is always encountered but rarely perceived. If we don’t perceive it, we can’t help ourselves and we can’t much help anyone else.

if you’re going to wait to get all the information you think you need before you act, you’ll never act because there’s an infinite amount of information out there.

It’s like what Miles Davis says: “Don’t worry about mistakes, there aren’t any.

Appreciate the struggles as opportunities to wake up.

unless you can explain Zen in words that a fisherman will comprehend, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Always maintain a joyful mind. Appreciate the struggles as opportunities to wake up.

In some way, my saying that I’m not here now feels sort of like an acknowledgment that I am here now, only feeling that I’m not.

the word happiness comes from to happen.

All this is nothing but space to be danced in. There's no need to feel harnessed or limited in any way . . . When the Dude is not in, life just blossoms.

up in the morning, go to the bathroom, pee, brush your teeth, look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself. Do it every morning to start off the day, as a practice.

As the Dude says, New shit comes to light, and when it does, you’ll pick it up again.

I notice that when I’m generous, accepting, and loving toward myself, all that’s reflected out into the world. The more I cut myself slack, the more I don’t judge myself for not being other than I am, the more I’m aware of who I am, see it, honor it, and respect it, the more I do all those things for others. I push them less and I respect their different rhythms.

To me, this book is sort of like a snakeskin. A snakeskin is something you might find on the side of the road and make something out of—a belt, say, or a hatband. The snake itself heads off doing more snake stuff—getting it on with lady snakes, eating rats, making more snakeskins, et cetera.

I love seeing somebody act real earnest and serious, like Jackie Gleason. He makes me laugh because he reflects back to me my own serious-mindedness and how ridiculous it all is. It’s always easier to see somebody else in that position than yourself, and you laugh. It’s like the classic slipping on the banana peel, or someone getting hit by a pie in the face. Why do those things make us laugh? Is it from relief, like: Thank God it wasn’t me? Or is it something else: I’m being very serious now. I’m pontificating earnestly and solemnly about—POW! PIE IN THE FACE! The bust-up of certainty.

Hope’s interesting, isn’t it? I can’t turn hope off, it’s hopeless.