Matt Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and movie producer; noted as one of the most bankable movie-stars in Hollywood. Matt Damon is involved in charities and speaking up about the poor; as well as particular political views. Damon is most well known from the ‘Bourne’ movie sagas. 

Check out these inspirational Matt Damon quotes on success, love, and life!

Here are 63 Inspirational Matt Damon Quotes:

1. “Some people just see the glory and they don’t want to know about the story.” – Matt Damon

2. “It’s pretty easy to kind of lose your way. Having kids is really helpful. They kind of disabuse you of the notion of your greatness pretty quickly.” – Matt Damon

3. “Liberty is a soul’s right to breathe.” – Matt Damon

4. “People do things in the names of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn’t that simple. So they end up doing things that aren’t necessarily good. Even if they think they’re doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective they can look barbaric and crazy.” – Matt Damon

5. “He’s famous for being obsessive about details.” – Matt Damon

6. “I didn’t grow up with great privilege, nor did I grow up wanting for anything. I was a middle-class kid and, relative to the rest of the world, that’s great wealth.” – Matt Damon

7. “I’d had people say, ‘You’ll enjoy being famous for a week, and you’ll never enjoy it again’. But I don’t think I had that week. I may have been working and missed that moment.” – Matt Damon

8. “If you can’t help people, then what is the point of being successful?” – Matt Damon

9. “History is change happening one person at a time.” – Matt Damon

10. “As actors, we react to the material that’s out there, and I probably just react more strongly to things that I feel will have some social value.” – Matt Damon

11. “The ideal life is you don’t sell a single magazine, nobody’s interested, but they want to come see your movie. Because that gives you true freedom.” – Matt Damon

12. “If there’s an idea I think is really good and I feel like I can write it, then I’ll do it.” – Matt Damon

13. “Fame is really strange. One day you’re not famous, and then the next day you are, and the odd thing is that you know intellectually that nothing in the world is different. What mattered to you yesterday are the same things that matter today, and the rules all still apply – yet everyone looks at you differently.” – Matt Damon

14. “I’ve gotten much better at multi-tasking. It’s hard, though. But, writing a script is not totally focused. You’re taking little breaks, all the time. If a kid runs in, you give ’em a horsey ride. It’s a pretty fluid process.” – Matt Damon

15. “I think what’s important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters and how you treat other people matters.” – Matt Damon

16. “It’s usually the exact same three things which are, the Scripts, the Director and the Role those are the three things I look for and really any two of them, If I get two of them that’s usually enough, but definitely those are the things I look for.” – Matt Damon

17. “I think it’s still hard for me to turn down work if it’s really good because for so many years I was desperate to get a job and couldn’t, so I think it’s anathema for me to turn down work if I think it’s really good.” – Matt Damon

18. “If I had a bucket list, I’d say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be No. 1.” – Matt Damon

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20. “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.” – Matt Damon

21. “I’m becoming far more interested in just functionality and making sure my body is as strong as it can be so I can swing my kids around and not worry about aches and pains.” – Matt Damon

22. “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.” – Matt Damon

23. “Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage.” – Matt Damon

24. “I believe a solid, really strong middle-class is the key to making the country in the best way.” – Matt Damon

25. “I started really young, like 12 or 13, and then I started doing school plays. We had a really good drama department, so the kind of drama-geek stigma wasn’t really there in my high school.” – Matt Damon

 

26. “The very first big photo shoot I ever did was with Bruce Weber. I couldn’t believe this guy was taking my picture, so when he told me to get in the bathtub, I just did. It’s only now, looking back, that I realize, you don’t have to do everything people tell you.” – Matt Damon

27. “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 Actor s end up making really safe choices. I never wanted to go that route. If I go down, I’m going down swinging. I know that’s the way Heath Ledger feels and Ben Affleck feels the same way, too. We want to take the big swings.” – Matt Damon

28. “I never wanted to do the same kind of movies over and over anyway, so my theory on it all is I’m just gonna try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing.” – Matt Damon

29. “It’s better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.” – Matt Damon

30. “As a struggling actor, you’re not looking for parts that define you; you’re just looking for work.” – Matt Damon

31. “It’s an objective fact, that if you want to solve some of these huge, kind of bigger problems of extreme poverty, you have to include the women. They’re the ones who will get it done.” – Matt Damon

32. “I can’t think of any more important value to instill in our children than the desire to help others. I feel strongly about setting an example for them. Real problems can be solved by the next generation if we instill in them the right values.” – Matt Damon

33. “Eventually stardom is going to go away from me. It goes away from everybody and all you have in the end is to be able to look back and like the choices you made.” – Matt Damon

34. “I usually play characters that are a lot different than me.” – Matt Damon

35. “I’m always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it’s a director’s medium, and if they don’t want to hear from me I just step back.” – Matt Damon

36. “If you work at something, you get better at it.” – Matt Damon

37. “Part of the American ethos is that you want to leave something better for your kids than you had and I know that my parents felt that way and I know that my grandparents felt that way and everybody worked hard so that their kids had a better chance. I just don’t want to be the first generation that doesn’t do that.” – Matt Damon

38. “Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.” – Matt Damon

39. “It’s intuitive in terms of when I read a piece of material or I hear about a project. I’m a writer, so I’ve written movies. I’ve read at this point thousands and thousands and thousands of screenplays. So if something gets me, then I don’t ignore that.” – Matt Damon

40. “I’d love to be a dad. I hope I’d be great at it. That’s every man’s fear, yet his most important job.” – Matt Damon

41. “As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors.” – Matt Damon

42. “All parents are trying to balance. Look, I’m lucky in the sense that I can control my hours. I can choose my jobs, and not everybody has that choice. But I definitely, it’s a family decision every time I take a job.” – Matt Damon

43. “Please find out what you can do to make a difference. Take five minutes to educate yourself on an issue you didn’t know about before. Then tell somebody else.” – Matt Damon

44. “For a lot of actors, our biggest fear is that we’re going to start talking about things we don’t fully understand and sound like idiots.” – Matt Damon

45. “There are people who just collect a bunch of footage and then edit it later. You definitely feel more protected when a director is moving on when you’ve actually felt something happen and you know they’re watching intently.” – Matt Damon

46. “You will never solve poverty without solving water and sanitation.” – Matt Damon

47. “Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.” – Matt Damon

 

48. “Paranoid is what people who are trying to take advantage call you in an effort to get you to drop your guard.” – Matt Damon

49. “I think I was very lucky. I think I had a lot of social capital, and so when I found myself in this position of influence, I just – then I started to engage a bit with some of the problems in the world and realize that I could actually have an impact.” – Matt Damon

50. “Now I feel I have an unspoken deal with the paparazzi: ‘I won’t do anything publicly interesting if you agree not to follow me.'” – Matt Damon

51. “If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it’s got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It’s not therapy – it’s supposed to be a communal piece of entertainment.” – Matt Damon

52. “I think what makes a good actor’s director is somebody who understands what I’m doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.” – Matt Damon

53. “Our problem is civil obedience.” – Matt Damon

54. “When you have a child, your relationship with every child in the world changes. It’s like you’re in a club you didn’t know existed before a child came into your life. I believe you should make the world more beautiful for all children in any way that you can.” – Matt Damon

55. “I think what makes a good actor’s director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.” – Matt Damon

56. “I’ve passed on a lot of huge-money jobs. Money doesn’t enter into the decision-making. If I do a big blockbuster, it’s about how big an audience you’ll get and where you can take them.” – Matt Damon

57. “I should have done it years ago. It’s amazing I didn’t even want cigarettes anymore.” – Matt Damon

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59. “It’s just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.” – Matt Damon

60. “I’ve been really lucky. I’ll completely forget that I’m a celebrity. And then something will happen, and I’ll go, ‘Oh, right.'” – Matt Damon

61. “Clean water is only as far away as the nearest tap, and there are taps everywhere. There’s a faucet everywhere. But the reality is, the water in our toilets is cleaner than the water than most people are drinking.” – Matt Damon

62. “Any moron with a pack of matches can start a fire. Raining down sulfur takes a huge level of endurance. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer.” – Matt Damon

63. “My mother is a professor of early childhood education. When I was two she would say she knew I was going to be an actor.” – Matt Damon

Which Matt Damon quote is your favorite and why? Comment below!