Shutting down the government is not how you make government work. — George Clooney

Most of the films I’ve done haven’t done particularly well. I’m surprised I’m continuing to work. — George Clooney

I know love at first sight can work. It happened to my parents. — George Clooney

I do happen to have a good life… But I also like to work. I feel like I got the brass ring and I got very lucky in this. — George Clooney

Over the course of my career, I’ve had the great fortune of working with some incredible filmmakers who have protected me and inspired me and taught me what an honor it is to work in film. — George Clooney

As time goes on and you become more comfortable in your career path, and things are starting to make sense, and it’s not just about work, you find that you’re able to focus on other things and other people. — George Clooney

My life isn’t focused on results. My life is really focused on the process of doing all the things I’m doing, from work to relationships to friendships to charitable work. — George Clooney

I use my film–making to work through my deep questions and my deep problems. I think I could watch each film and tell you exactly which part of my psyche I’m trying to work out. — George Clooney

There are people who like to work in chaos, and some people work better under that, and create that sort of chaos, but that makes a set not necessarily very fun. I like to work on sets that don’t have that. — George Clooney

I had my Aunt Rosie, who was famous and then not, so I got a lesson in fame early on. And I understood how little it has to do with you. And also how you could use it. — George Clooney

I rarely tell anybody what they should be doing with their life. — George Clooney

If you’re famous, I don’t–for the life of me–I don’t understand why any famous person would ever be on Twitter. — George Clooney

I don’t like to share my personal life… it wouldn’t be personal if I shared it. — George Clooney

Whatever you do, don’t wake up at 65 years old and think about what you should have done with your life. — George Clooney

Both of my grandparents died of lung cancer. So I got quite a lesson in the payback later in life of smoking, and if you keep it up how bad it can be. — George Clooney

I was very lucky to get well known much later in life. You need to have flopped quite a few times to get a sense of how little any of it has to do with you. — George Clooney

I’ve been my most happy and my most unhappy in relationships. I have family and friends and people I care very much about. I’ve got a really, really, really good life. — George Clooney

I think people in Italy live their lives better than we do. It’s an older country, and they’ve learned to celebrate dinner and lunch, whereas we sort of eat as quickly as we can to get through it. — George Clooney

I enjoy living in a nice house and having a nice life. So I do two or three commercials overseas a year to sort of fill in, because they pay pretty well. — George Clooney

I think the reason why a lot of young people are such screw ups… is oftentimes they didn’t have the luxury I had of forming important relationships and opinions and life experiences before having success. — George Clooney

An acting career usually has about a shelf life of ten years before people get sick of seeing you. It’s a good thing to have a job to fall back on and I really do enjoy directing. — George Clooney

I don’t believe in heaven and hell. I don’t know if I believe in God. All I know is that as an individual, I won’t allow this life–the only thing I know to exist–to be wasted. — George Clooney

I find that as you get older, you start to simplify things in general. — George Clooney

Getting older is not something that you’re not much concerned with. — George Clooney

But I’m kind of comfortable with getting older because it’s better than the other option, which is being dead. So I’ll take getting older. — George Clooney

I’m only two years older than Brad Pitt, but I look a lot older, which used to greatly frustrate me. It doesn’t anymore. I don’t have to fit into that category and get trounced by Tom Cruise and Brad. — George Clooney

You have only a short period of time in your life to make your mark, and I’m there now. — George Clooney

I watch ‘Batman & Robin’ from time to time. It’s the worst movie I ever made, so it’s a good lesson in humility. — George Clooney

In the United States 95% of the people who win elections have the most money. That’s it. So, money is a big part of elections. But that happens all the time. — George Clooney

If I had been with all the women that I was said to have been with, I wouldn’t have had the time to shoot a single movie! — George Clooney

Politicians have a tremendous amount of ego to be able to do it. It’s very hard when the product your selling to an entire country is yourself and you’re just selling the hell out of it all the time. — George Clooney

You get better as an actor over time if you’re growing. Like singers. — George Clooney

Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left — George Clooney

I didn’t have time. I was too busy breaking up Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s marriage. (on rumours he was responsible for Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt’s break–up) — George Clooney

When you first start out as an actor, you’re just looking for a good part. As time goes on, if you’re being held responsible for the movies themselves, you’re looking for a good script all around. — George Clooney

Most of the time, I’m working in places I’m not familiar with. Sometimes it’s Slovakia, and sometimes it’s Hawaii. Not to bash on Slovakia, but I really did enjoy Hawaii. — George Clooney

When you first start out, you are just happy to get a job, any job. And as time goes on, either you move forward or screech to a halt. — George Clooney

I don’t know of an actor that the Coen brothers would come to and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a movie for you to be in, if you want to do it,’ that would say, ‘No.’ That’s the truth. — George Clooney

It’s hard to find actors that don’t feel contemporary when you put them in a period piece. — George Clooney

Ides of March’ I did for scale–scale as a director, scale as an actor, scale as a writer. — George Clooney

My parents were disappointed I didn’t finish college, and they were really upset when I went to Hollywood to become an actor. I was a big disappointment to them. — George Clooney

Stage actors look down on movie actors, movie actors look down on TV actors, and TV actors look down on… mass murderers. — George Clooney

Directors are the captains of the ship, and it’s your job as the lead actor to make sure that the rest of the cast understand that by doing whatever he says. — George Clooney

I’m a Method actor. I spent years training for the drinking and carousing I had to do in this film. — George Clooney

The people I’ve respected most in the industry over the years–Paul Newman, for instance. I just loved the way he handled growing old on–screen. It’s understanding that you’re now basically a character actor. — George Clooney

I know what my limitations are as an actor, but my strength is putting myself into a well–written part. When I get in trouble is when I have to fix it, or when I have to carry it on personality. — George Clooney

When you’re young you believe it when people tell you how good you are. And that’s the danger, you inhale. Everyone will tell you you’re a genius, which you are not, and if you understand that, you win. — George Clooney

When you’re young, you tend to believe what people tell you, and that’s dangerous. As you get older, you learn that you’re never as good or as bad as they say you are. If you understand this, you win. — George Clooney

However, we believe that once these have been cleared, the merit of the law will be evident. — George Clooney

If people see me having dinner with a beautiful woman, they immediately believe that I’m having a love affair with her. Of course that’s rubbish. I’m not a playboy! — George Clooney

I don’t believe in happy endings, but I do believe in happy travels, because ultimately, you die at a very young age, or you live long enough to watch your friends die. It’s a mean thing, life. — George Clooney

The truth is my development I hope is the same way as everything, which is, I succeed some, I fail some, and I keep slugging away at it. I really enjoy it. It’s fun. — George Clooney

I enjoy directing. I don’t know whether it’s improving or not, but it’s certainly evolving in different directions. — George Clooney

I didn’t enjoy working with Bill [Murray]. We fought a lot… but I’ve let go of some of the anger and we seem to get along fine now. — George Clooney

I enjoy going on motorcycle trips and stopping in small towns and enjoying drinks with the locals. — George Clooney

It’s possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can’t make a good movie from a bad script. — George Clooney

There’s a coffin in the back of the church as the wedding is going on … Look, I’m a romantic. I like marriage…In the movies. — George Clooney

The last real movie stars were probably Redford and Newman. And things were different then. There wasn’t this amazing amount of magazines and information about them. — George Clooney

Even other movies I wasn’t involved with, I’d watch them edit ’cause I really enjoy watching them go through their process. It’s a very economical, educational process. — George Clooney

I was watching ‘Up In The Air’ and I thought, ‘Jesus, who’s the old gray–haired guy?’ And it was me. I never wear makeup for movies and now it’s starting to show. — George Clooney