Michael Andrew Fox, better known as Michael J. Fox, is a famous American actor born in Edmonton, Canada in 1961.
Some of his most important films are “Back to the Future”, “Teen Wolf”, “Custom Made Janitor”, “Doc Hollywood” or “The Hard Way”.
His successful professional career and his personal fight against Parkinson’s from a very early age have made this actor one of the most recognizable and beloved faces of the entire 20th century.
Below we will review the most remembered Michael J. Fox phrases a reflection of his way of thinking and understanding art, society and life in general.
If you would like to know what his personality is like in private life or what some of his most interesting moral principles are, this article will be very revealing for you.
In it we are going to show you a brief selection of the best quotes by Michael J. Fox, along with a small review of each one of them in which we will explain our personal reflection on the quote in question. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have collecting them.
1. I truly believe that we have infinite levels of power that we don’t even know are available to us.
In reality we are much more powerful than we imagine, because in most cases we do not fully take advantage of our own potential.
2. One’s dignity can be assaulted, destroyed and cruelly mocked, but it cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
If we do not let others subjugate us, they will never really be able to do so, because dignity is something that, as J. Fox tells us in this quote, can only be given and never taken away.
3. I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach; Perfection is God’s business.
No human being is perfect all of us have made some mistakes throughout our lives.
4. What other people think of me is none of my business.
The opinion of others does not have to matter to us, because that opinion will never have force in our lives if we do not give it to them.
5. I’m also very proud to be part of a trilogy of films that, if nothing else, allow people to check their problems at the door, sit back and have fun.
The Back to the Future trilogy of films have possibly been his best works, films that have undoubtedly delighted both children and adults over the last 35 years.
6. I’m marrying a Jewish woman because I like the idea of getting up on Sunday morning and going to the deli.
As we see, his personal sense of humor is quite peculiar, a way of being that will probably have served him well, to be able to face face to face with all those problems that life has thrown at him.
7. You’ve probably read in “People” that I’m a good guy, but when the doctor first told me I had Parkinson’s, I wanted to kill him.
The discovery of his illness was a truly devastating blow, both for him and for everyone around him. A situation that this actor has had to learn to live with over the years.
8. I didn’t want to work in metal and have hurt hands and be around kids. So I took the drama because there were a lot of girls.
Being surrounded by girls was a good incentive for him, since at that time they occupied the first place on his list of priorities.
9. If I were overweight because I ate too much, I would have a much more complex. I would know that if I stopped eating and showed a little discipline, I would be thin. But there’s not much I can do because I’m short. You just have to run with it.
Being short was something he couldn’t solve, but this problem would never stop him in his pursuit of success.
10. After a year or so, I actually thought he was Howard Hughes. Here I was at eighteen years old, getting all these checks.
Earning a lot of money quickly can be something that changes our way of thinking, something that happened to him. Although we must keep in mind that he was only 18 years old when he managed to succeed in the world of acting.
11. Everyone in the world knew who I was, before I knew who I was.
His rise to success was so fast that fame caught him by surprise, this actor became one of the most famous guys of his time, really overnight.
12. The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It has five or six people, new show every night, the same players. Good set; people have worked a lot together.
Theater was a very interesting art for him, a mode of interpretation with which many actors of all eras usually feel very comfortable.
13. Laughter means more to me than adoration. If two girls come up to me and one says you’re cute, I’ll thank you, but I appreciate it much more when the other says you make me laugh so much.
Humor is undoubtedly one of the best ways to conquer someone, an idea that J. Fox has always been very clear about throughout his life.
14. Tracy is more of a help to me than I am to her.
Tracy Pollan is today the wife of this legendary actor, a relationship that began in 1988 and in which they have had 4 children.
15. I would not have liked to miss the opportunity to make those three films that did not turn out well. They were very important to me and the things I learned from doing them were important to me.
The mythical “Back to the Future” trilogy marked a before and after in his life, thanks to these films this actor was able to make everything he had always dreamed of come true.
16. I worked very hard on those films, but there was a creative connection that wasn’t being made.
If the actor/director relationship is not good, the film will undoubtedly suffer as a result. An experience that this actor had to go through on more than one occasion.
17. I love irony. They perceive me as very young and yet I have the clinical condition of an old man.
Although his appearance has always been that of a young boy, unfortunately his ailments have made him in a frankly delicate state of health for a long time.
18. Pain is temporary, the movie is forever.
Cinema can make any actor immortal, because even if that actor dies, his films, if we wish, will accompany us forever.
19. I’m a bit reserved and keep a lot of things inside, but it’s been wonderful to realize that people care about you in a very deep way and that there is a bond between an actor and his audience. I don’t even know how to describe that feeling.
When J.Fox spoke about his illness, all his fans did not hesitate to support him, something for which he would always be enormously grateful.
20. At 50 I will be dancing at my children’s weddings.
His children have always been the most important thing for him, we can be sure that his life without them would be totally empty today.
21. The only thing worse than an opportunity you don’t deserve is wasting an opportunity.
Life will give us very few opportunities to succeed, so we must make sure not to fail once they come to us.
22. I had all the usual ambition growing up. He wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. He wanted to do something that wasn’t nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that made him click.
Acting as we see opened the doors to a new world, a place where he could explore all his creativity and give free rein to his great imagination.
23. Do you know what I want? The answer is, I really don’t know what I want. I don’t want to do a television series. I want to do both dramas and comedies, but I have no idea what type or in what order. Just give me a chance with them.
As an artist, he wanted to make films of all types, something logical considering that all great actors usually try to avoid being pigeonholed into a certain role.
24. Zoos are becoming facsimiles, or perhaps caricatures, of what animals once were like in their natural habitat. If proper policies towards nature were followed, we wouldn’t need zoos at all.
Zoos would certainly not be necessary if man respected the natural habitat of other species, a fact that unfortunately has not yet happened in the 21st century.
25. Medical science has proven time and time again that when resources are provided, great advances can occur in the treatment, cure and prevention of diseases.
Medicine is advancing very quickly and more and more governments around the world are deciding to increase their development and research budgets.
26. The longer I wait, the more unhappy I will be. The more I accept, the more serene I feel.
If we want to be happier we must learn to live in the present, because many times we are so absorbed in thinking about the future that we do not realize all the positive things we have today.
27. I don’t have any affirmation, I don’t have any of that. My natural state is to look at things as possibilities and opportunities.
The future can be wonderful if we work for it, because every day we can take a small step that brings us even a little closer towards our possible goals.
28. This is how I see things: if you focus on the worst-case scenario and it happens, you’ve lived it twice. It sounds like Pollyanna-ish tripe, but I’m telling you, it works for me.
You never know what may happen in the future, so we should never worry about problems before they appear.
29. I have so many things that I say to my children that it drives them crazy.
Life was very busy for him in those years, the media used to keep him busy 24 hours a day.
30. I always felt like I fell short in the education department, but I have come to the conclusion that we all receive an education.
Perhaps the North American educational system is not the best in the world, but at the end of the day we cannot deny that it allows all Americans to have a minimum level of education.
31. There are always failures. And there is always disappointment. And there is always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss and realizing that none of those holes are empty.
Our past failures and our present mistakes can be a good base from which we can later take off, since we should all be very clear that bad experiences are what human beings tend to learn the most from.
32. By the time I entered high school, I had abandoned academic studies entirely in favor of my burgeoning acting career.
Acting was what he was most passionate about at that time, a hobby for which he decided to leave his usual academic studies forever.
33. Teenagers joyfully skip into an uncertain future, while their parents sit crying curbside in the Volvo, because the teenage brain is not yet formed enough to recognize and evaluate risk.
Life can sometimes be very dangerous, over time we all discover that the world is not as kind a place as we once thought.
34. No, I got a GED at 30. My kids know that I never stop learning and they know that I love to read. I have books overflowing everywhere. I am aware of today’s events and I read the newspaper every day, and we talk about it, so you can see that appetite.
As a person, he has always been a very curious man, because he has always known very well that, as they say, wisdom never really takes up space.
35. So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy’s big challenge is not having a Parkinson’s patient for a husband. She has me as a husband. I happen to be a Parkinson’s patient.
His wife Tracy has undoubtedly been one of his greatest supporters throughout his life Without her, J. Fox would have had much more difficulties due to his illness.
36. I don’t have a set of principles, but I live an ethical life. I practice a form of humility that assumes there is a power greater than oneself, and I have always believed that we should not inflict harm when it is not necessary.
Some of us could learn a lot from this actor and be a little more humble in our daily lives, a quality or way of being that, unfortunately, seems to be being forgotten within this, our society.
37. Life is a power greater than I will ever understand. The way life goes through everything, even the smallest elements of nature, that humbles me.
Life on our planet is truly incredible, it seems to be able to make its way even in the most inhospitable places around the globe.
38. He was eccentric, even as a child. I was an early reader, an early talker. He was very curious in a way that maybe the other kids weren’t. I was a little more extroverted.
As we discovered in this quote, dialogue with other people has always been something that he has been very good at, a quality that, as we all know, this actor usually uses very regularly in all the roles he plays.
39. I do not subscribe to any particular doctrine or ideology. I simply believe that there is good and bad, the good is life in its purest and happiest form, and the other is the darker side of existence.
He has always known how to greatly value his own point of view a way of being that has allowed this actor to never be an impressionable person.
40. I think that most of the time the balance tips towards the good. It is an amazing thing that keeps going and if we get into the flow of it, that is God. And if we fight against it, if we swim in the opposite direction, we move away from the purest expression of this life.
If we are believers, the idea that God helps us at all times can be a driving force that drives us to a great extent in our daily lives.
41. I’m a dad, I’m a husband, I’m an activist, I’m a writer, and I’m just a student of the world.
We can all become what we want to be, but making it a reality will almost always require a great amount of effort and dedication.
42. What leads people to cry on a wall, or look at Mecca, or go to church, is the search for that feeling of purity.
Thanks to religion, many people around the world have managed to feel a little more supported in some difficult moments, something that would simply never have been possible otherwise.
43. Life handed me a catastrophe, but I found a wealth of soul.
As we see, for this actor everything always happens for a good reason, an undoubtedly very romantic way of seeing life, which perhaps in practice has made it a little easier for him to be able to deal with his illness on a daily basis.
44. My vision of life is colored by humor and seeking the best in any situation.
Humor can always be a good weapon to successfully face all those most difficult moments that life sometimes throws at us.
45. In fact, Parkinson’s has made me a better person. A better husband, father, and overall human being.
His illness, over time, has allowed him to become a much more empathetic person, a fact that shows us that even from the most unpleasant situations, we can also extract something positive if we know how to pay attention.
46. I have moments when I lose my balance. I have moments when I don’t pronounce the words correctly. I have moments where I hit walls. I have moments when I can’t remember someone’s name.
As we see, this disease is undoubtedly very unpleasant and complicated, something that no person would ever have to go through.
47. As much as Parkinson’s is about movement, the final stage is freezing. So the more I let that happen, the more I’ll get stuck in it and unable to reverse it.
Parkinson’s can end up leading to very complicated medical conditions, although luckily science is advancing very quickly in its treatment, ensuring that those who suffer from it can stop their disease as soon as possible.
48. At 21, I was earning six figures a week. At 23, he had a Ferrari. He was crazy.
His rise to fame was certainly meteoric and we can even safely say that Michael J. Fox is one of the greatest male icons of the 80s.
49. But if I overvalue the downside of something or the challenge of something and get too obsessed with the difficulty, then I don’t leave enough room to be open to chance, to possibility.
In life we only fail when we don’t try, if we are not persistent in our search for success, we will never be able to make it happen.
50. Humility is always a good thing. It’s always good to feel humbled by circumstances so that you can then come from a sincere place to try to deal with them.
If we are not humble people, we will never truly value all those great things that life has luckily given us.
51. I definitely believe in a higher power.
As we can see, For him the figure of God has always been very present in his life and who knows if perhaps it is thanks to him that this great idol is still among us.
52. When you’re a short actor, you stand on apple boxes, you walk on a ramp. When you’re a small star, everyone else is walking in a ditch.
His height could never stop his rise to success, if Alexander the Great conquered half the world while measuring 1.60m, without a doubt he could do it too.
53. I can’t always control my body the way I want, and I can’t control when I feel good or when I don’t. I can control how clear my mind is. And I can control how willing I am to step up if someone needs me.
Although Parkinson’s is a terrible disease, he was always very clear that it could not change his life. If this actor has taught us anything, it is that with enough willpower anything can be possible.
54. My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance and in inverse proportion to my expectations.
Knowing how to adapt to circumstances can be something that helps us overcome a problem quickly, because sometimes turning the page is the simplest and most beneficial solution that we can all take.
55. Discipline is doing the same thing the right way, whether someone is watching or not.
We should never get carried away by the ideas of third parties the only person who should guide our passage through life must always be ourselves.
56. I still play hockey from time to time and I still play golf. But my biggest exercise is walking my big dog in the park every day.
Walking our pet can be a very pleasant moment for anyone, a daily life situation that luckily many of us tend to enjoy daily.
57. I can’t be cocky, because I know that you can lose anything at any time. And I can’t be angry, because I haven’t lost it.
Many of us tend to obsess about the future or situations that happened to us in the past, when in reality we should be more grateful for all the good things that life perhaps offers us today.
58. I have a remarkably normal life.
Currently this actor has a very calm and pleasant life, something that many of us have undoubtedly also dreamed of.
59. I see possibilities in everything. For everything that is taken away, something of greater value has been given.
Life always tends to give one of lime and one of sand, it ultimately depends on us if we want to see the glass of our existence half empty or half full.
60. I often say that I have no choice now whether I have Parkinson’s or not, but around that no choice there are a million other choices I can make.
Learning to live with a disease like Parkinson’s can be extremely complicated although luckily there are currently very effective treatments against this type of difficulties.
61. I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it is proactive and there is a positive intention behind it.
We can all do our bit in society, regardless of our physical abilities or our purchasing power.
62. In those choices, there is freedom to do many things in areas that I would not otherwise have found myself in.
As time goes by, life will always offer us new possibilities, it is up to us if we want to take advantage of them or let them pass by.
63. I mean, I enjoy my job as an actor. But making a difference in people’s lives through promoting and supporting research, that’s the kind of privilege that few people will ever get, and it’s certainly bigger than being on TV every Thursday for half an hour.
In this quote Michael J. Fox reveals to us his great contribution in the fight against Parkinson’s, a commendable work that the entire society will undoubtedly always thank him for.
64. My wife is Jewish and therefore my children have the right to be Jewish by birth.
As we see in this quote, his wife’s religion was never an impediment for him, a very accurate way of thinking that many of us will probably also share.
65. Now I feel and say all the time that vanity is long gone. I don’t really have to worry about how I look, because it’s out of my shaking hands. I don’t control it. So why would I waste a second of my life worrying about that?
If something cannot be fixed sooner, let’s accept it sooner than it will become part of the past. His great ability to adapt to problems is what has undoubtedly allowed this actor to live his life with a certain normality.
66. But the key to our marriage is the ability to give ourselves a break. And realizing that’s not how our similarities work together; This is how our differences work together.
Knowing how to accept our partner’s defects is what will practically allow us to live our entire lives with them. On the other hand, we should start by accepting our own flaws if we want to be able to accept the flaws of others in the future.
67. I think the scariest person in the world is the one who has no sense of humor.
Humor is undoubtedly one of the greatest gifts that human beings possess; without it, even the happiest life can become, over time, a gray and dull life.
68. So I never spend much time analyzing why people respond to my work. But I think it’s just the joy, the passion for life, that I think has always been in my characters. Beyond that, I’m grateful for it.
His personality always brought him great successes at the box office, some very fun films that 30 years later many of us still continue to enjoy every day.
69. The less we can judge, the better off we will be.
As they say, he who is without sin should cast the first stone we should never judge others if we do not want them to judge us as well.
70. If I don’t put food in my mouth, I’m still happy. If my pants are around my ankles, as long as I don’t get arrested for indecent exposure, I’m happy. I’m worried about maintaining my hair, not how it’s styled.
Life is too short not to enjoy it and this actor was always very clear that Parkinson’s would not deprive him of living life his way.
71. I have never gotten up to see something that one of my children wanted to show me and not been rewarded.
Your children are an essential pillar in your life. Like many of us, his family has always been his most valuable asset.
72. Just as Parkinson’s isn’t a big topic of conversation in my house, neither is my career.
Journalists had to learn to turn the page just as he did, since his illness was unfortunately something that from then on would accompany him for the rest of his life.
73. I don’t see life as a battle or a fight. I don’t think he’s a tough guy.
Life does not have to be a constant war, let us always keep in mind that sometimes it is the smallest things that will give us the most satisfaction.
74. Acceptance does not mean resignation; It means understanding that something is what it is and that there has to be a way to overcome it.
Sometimes life brings us moments that no one would want to have to go through. In situations like this, acceptance is always the first step towards future improvement.
75. I am not complicit with the Democratic Party.
From this quote, we can all get a good idea, related to which political party this notable celebrity is likely to vote for. An undoubtedly very personal decision, which all US citizens should always make individually.
