Michael J. Fox Quotes

"Family is not an important thing. It's everything."

- Michael J. Fox

"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it."

- Michael J. Fox

"I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it's proactive and there is positive intent behind it."

- Michael J. Fox

"My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations."

- Michael J. Fox

"Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone's watching or not."

- Michael J. Fox

"I think the scariest person in the world is the person with no sense of humor."

- Michael J. Fox

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

- Michael J. Fox

"There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums."

- Michael J. Fox

"Life delivered me a catastrophe, but I found a richness of soul."

- Michael J. Fox

"I see possibilities in everything. For everything that's taken away, something of greater value has been given."

- Michael J. Fox

"One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered."

- Michael J. Fox

"The only thing worse than an opportunity you don't deserve is blowing an opportunity."

- Michael J. Fox

"The thing that brings people to wail at a wall, or face Mecca, or to go to church, is a search for that feeling of purity."

- Michael J. Fox

"The least amount of judging we can do, the better off we are."

- Michael J. Fox

"I don't subscribe to any particular doctrine or ideology. I just think that there's kind of a good and bad, the good being life in its purest, happiest form, and the other being the darker side of existence."

- Michael J. Fox

"Always be available to your kids. Because if you say, 'Give me five minutes, give me ten minutes,' it'll be 15, it'll be 20. And then when you get there, the shine will have worn off whatever it is they wanted to share with you."

- Michael J. Fox

"Pity is just another form of abuse."

- Michael J. Fox

"I can't be smug, because I know that you can lose anything at any point. And I can't be angry, because I haven't lost it."

- Michael J. Fox

"I truly believe that we have infinite levels of power that we don't even know are available to us."

- Michael J. Fox

"I believe that the majority of times the scale tilts toward the good. It's this amazing thing that rolls on and if we get in the flow of it, that's God. And if we fight it, if we swim the other way, we're swimming away from the purest expression of this life."

- Michael J. Fox

"Certainly people have a lot tougher situations than I've had to deal with. But I will say we are all dying from the moment we are born. This is not just rehearsal."

- Michael J. Fox

"Vanity's really overrated. When I was 20, teenage girls had my picture on the wall... I don't need to be pretty anymore. I just am who I am."

- Michael J. Fox

"No matter how much money you have, you can lose it."

- Michael J. Fox

“A creative mess is better than idle tidiness.”

- Michael J. Fox

“A creative mess is better than idle tidiness.”

- Michael J. Fox

“Happiness is a decision.”

- Michael J. Fox

“Optimism is a cure for many things.”

- Michael J. Fox

“When life takes away, something of greater value is always given in return.”

- Michael J. Fox

“I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best.”

- Michael J. Fox

“It may seem hard to believe, but it's catastrophe that offers the most promise for an even richer life. This is the gateway to the good stuff. In other words, you never truly know which way the wind is blowing until the shit hits the fan.” 

- Michael J. Fox

“After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.”

- Michael J. Fox

“If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today.”

- Michael J. Fox

“Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn.”

- Michael J. Fox

“You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake.”

- Michael J. Fox

“The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. ...I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned.”

- Michael J. Fox

“My notion of spirituality was different than it is now, but even if I'd been the most fundamentalist of believers, I would have assumed that God had better things to do than arbitrarily smite me with shaking palsy.” 

- Michael J. Fox