Excerpt: This collection of quotes from Will will give you a peak into the mind of one of the most beloved and prolific stars in Hollywood history…
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Introduction: Behind-The-Scenes Will
I started reading Will right after Will Smith walked on stage at the Oscars and slapped Chris Rock in the face for making a joke about his wife. I bought it a few months before and had it on the bottom of my reading pile, but quickly moved it to the top as I found myself wondering on and off for days after… what was going through his head? What got him to that point? What in the actual heck just happened?
And what I found… relatively early into the book was an earnest, behind-the-scenes look at one of the most beloved and prolific stars in Hollywood history. Co-written by Mark Manson, the number one condition for working with Will that Mark set forth at the outset of writing the book was that he be candid about his flaws and failures as a person.
Mark said in an email in regards to the slap, “I had no interest in presenting a beautifully polished book about a guy who never fucked up and won at everything. I wanted to dig deep into the life of one of the most universally beloved people on the planet and look at what failures and insecurities made him tick.” And that, from my experience reading the book, was what we got.
Just like the rest of us—with as many platinum albums, record breaking movie premiers, and wildly successful initiatives taken—Will Smith is flawed. And what we see when we read the pages of his memoire is a guy who found a way from the streets of Philadelphia to the top of Hollywood in spite of them. Or, maybe better said, in conjunction with them.
Captured below are some of my favorite quotes from Will that give you a peek into the inner workings of his mind. To start, you’ll get a closer look at his thoughts around his unrelenting work ethic, facing fear, and rest. You’ll then get to see how his thoughts around happiness and satisfaction have evolved throughout his wildly successful career. And finally, you’ll get a taste for his thoughts on love and how he has learned to manage his most intimate relationships—which, might help you better understand what was going through his head, what got him to the point of, and what in the actual heck happened when he slapped Chris Rock in the face.
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7 Quotes from Will on Hustle / Work Ethic
“‘Stop thinking about the damn wall!’ [Daddio] said. ‘There is no wall. There are only bricks. Your job is to lay this brick perfectly. Then move on to the next brick. Then lay that brick perfectly. Then the next one. Don’t be worrying about no wall. Your only concern is one brick.‘ … The days dragged on, and as much as I hated to admit it, I started to see what he was talking about. When I focused on the wall, the job felt impossible. Never-ending. But when I focused on one brick, everything got easy—I knew I could lay one damn brick well…”
Will Smith, Will (Page viii)
“For my entire career, I have been absolutely relentless. I’ve been committed to a work ethic of uncompromising intensity. And the secret to my success is as boring as it is unsurprising: You show up and you lay another brick. Pissed off? Lay another brick. Bad opening weekend? Lay another brick. Album sales dropping? Get up and lay another brick. Marriage failing? Lay another brick.”
Will Smith, Will (Page ix)
“In [Daddio’s] world, there was no such thing as a ‘small thing.’ Doing your homework was a mission. Cleaning the bathroom was a mission. Getting groceries from the supermarket was a mission. And scrubbing a floor? It was never just about scrubbing a floor—it was about your ability to follow orders, to exhibit self-discipline, and to complete a task with the utmost perfection. ‘Ninety-nine percent is the same as zero’ was one of his favorite sayings.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 9)
“Deep down inside, I knew that my dreams would be made or broken by the people I chose to surround myself with. Confucius had it right: It’s nearly impossible for the quality of your life to be higher than the quality of your friends. And by the grace of God, there has never been a single moment in my life when I have looked to my left or to my right and not seen an extraordinary friend, someone who believed in me and was down for whatever.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 96)
“[Darrell’s] position was: dreams are built on discipline; discipline is built on habits; habits are built on training. And training takes place in every single second and every situation of your life: how you wash the dishes; how you drive a car; how you present a report at school or at work. You either do your best all the time or you don’t; if the behaviors has not been trained and practiced, then the switch will not be there when you need it.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 302)
“This fight-camp, support-the-champ mentality became the new law of our group. Everybody had to run five at five; everybody had to work out in the gym; everybody had to eat right; everybody had to read and study and offer new ideas. Everybody had to live a disciplined life, to reach for the best version of themselves, otherwise they had to go the fuck home. The unified mission of telling Muhammad Ali’s story established a new fundamental way of being that would extend within our group far beyond the completion of Ali.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 310)
“If quitting is a possibility, everyone will pick that—it’s the easiest one. Who wouldn’t pick not running at 5:00 a.m. over running at 5:00 a.m.? If quitting is an option, you’ll never finish anything hard. The only way an imperfect mind can be forced to achieve is by removing all of its other options. To me, the heart of all successful human interactions is we look at each other and we know we’re about to attempt something that is difficult/impossible, and we both vow to die before we quit.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 237)
5 Quotes from Will on Facing Fear / Resilience
“How we decide to respond to our fears, that is the person we become.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 14)
“Change can be scary, but it’s utterly unavoidable. In fact, impermanence is the only thing you can truly rely on. If you are unwilling or unable to pivot and adapt to the incessant, fluctuating tides of life, you will not enjoy being here. Sometimes, people try to play the cards that they wish they had, instead of playing the hand they’ve been dealt. The capacity to adjust and improvise is arguably the single most critical human ability.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 193)
“There is a Buddhist parable that has guided me through many a perilous transition: A man is standing on the banks of a treacherous, raging river. It’s rainy season—if he can’t get to the other side, he’s done. He quickly builds a raft and uses it to safely cross the river. In joyous relief, he high-fives himself, lifts the raft, and heads toward the forest. But as he attempts to make his way through the dense tree cover, the raft is banging and knocking into trees and becoming entangled in vines, preventing him from moving forward. He only has one chance for survival: He must leave the raft behind—the vessel that saved his life yesterday is the same one that will kill him today if he does not let it go.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 193)
“I’ve realized that for some reason, God placed the most beautiful things in life on the other side of our worst terrors. If we are not willing to stand in the face of the things that most deeply unnerve us, and then step across the invisible line into the land of dread, then we won’t get to experience the best that life has to offer.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 406)
“Hope sustains life. Hope is the elixir of survival during our darkest times. The ability to envision and imagine a brighter day gives meaning to our suffering and renders it bearable. When we lose hope, we lose our central source of strength and resilience.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 97)
3 Quotes from Will on Resting / Recovery
“‘Surrender’ had always been a negative word for me—it meant losing or failing or giving up. But my burgeoning relationship with the ocean was exposing that my sense of control was actually an illusion. Surrender transformed from a weakness word to an infinite power concept. I had had a bias toward action—thrusting, pushing, striving, struggling, doing—and I began to realize that their opposites were equally as powerful—inaction, receptiveness, acceptance, non-resistance, being.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 387)
“The ebb and flow of the tide is the heartbeat of the planet. When they sit in the ocean all day, they are tuning themselves in to the frequency of the earth. This alignment, to Scoty, was the highest human experience. When he spends time with anyone he loves, he wants to spend it in the ocean—surfing, fishing, boating, water-skiing, swimming, reconnectin’, and limin’.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 371)
“Stopping was equally as powerful as going; resting was equally as powerful as training; silence was equally as powerful as talking. Letting go was equally as powerful as grasping. ‘Surrender’ to me no longer meant defeat—it was now an equally powerful tool of manifestation. Losing could be equal to winning in terms of my growth and development.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 387)
9 Quotes from Will on Happiness / Satisfaction
“You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 212)
“The thing about money, sex, and success is that when you don’t have them, you can justify your misery—shit, if I had money, sex, and success, I’d feel great! However misguided that may be, it psychologically permeates as hope. But once you are rich, famous, successful—and you’re still insecure and unhappy—the terrifying thought begins to lurk: Maybe the problem is me.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 151)
“‘If I am more successful, I’ll be happier, and people will love me more.’ I was trying to fill an internal emotional hole with external, material achievements. Ultimately, this kind of obsession is insatiable. The more you get, the more you want, all the time never quite scratching the itch. You end up with a mind consumed by what it doesn’t have and what it didn’t get, and in a spiraling inability to enjoy what it has.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 333)
“The problem is, the more you get, the more you want. It’s like drinking salt water to quench your thirst. We develop a tolerance that makes us need more just to get the same high. I started to recognize the game, the trick, the insanity, the carrot on the stick. I had never liked vampire movies, but I suddenly understood their mythology—they are a metaphor for insatiable human hunger, unquenchable thirsts, and chronic dissatisfaction—the attempt to fill a spiritual hole with external things. If unparalleled winning and achieving everything I’ve ever dreamed of does not secure perfect happiness and ultimate bliss, then what does?”
Will Smith, Will (Page 368)
“The bigger the fantasy you live, the more painful the inevitable collision with reality. If you cultivate the fantasy that your marriage will be forever joyful and effortless, then reality is going to pay you back in equal proportion to your delusion. If you live the fantasy that making money will earn you love, then the universe will slap you awake, in the tune of a thousand angry voices.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 27)
“The attainment of my dream became an act of survival. In my darkest nights, my dream saved my life—it was my light, my food. My vision of brighter days sustained me. It was my whole purpose. I saw my hopes as the ticket to a better life—to joy, fulfillment, security, safety. I saw the realization of my dream as my only road to love and happiness. Failure equaled death.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 285)
“Desire is what you want; purpose is the flowering of what you are. Desire tends to weaken over time, whereas purpose strengthens the more you lean into it. Desire can be depleting because it’s insatiable; purpose is empowering—it’s a stronger engine. Purpose has a way of contextualizing life’s unavoidable sufferings and making them meaningful and worthwhile.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 314)
“To place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself is a recipe for misery.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 357)
“We had concluded that no one can make a person happy. You can make a person smile; you can compose a moment that helps a person to feel good; you can deliver a joke that makes a person laugh; you can create an environment where a person feels safe. We can and must be helpful and kind and loving, but whether a person is happy or not is utterly out of your control. Every person must wage a solitary internal war for their own contentment.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 357)
10 Quotes from Will on Love / Relationships
“When I think back to my childhood, I visualize my father, my mother, and Gigi arranged as a philosophical triangle. My father was one side of the triangle: discipline. He taught me how to work, how to be relentless. He instilled in me an ethic that ‘It’s better to die than to quit.’ My mother: education. She believed that knowledge was the irrevocable key to a successful life. She wanted me to study, to learn, to grow, to cultivate a deep and broad understanding, to either ‘know what you’re talking about or be quiet.’ Gigi: love (God). Whereas I tried to please my mother and father so I wouldn’t get into trouble, I wanted to please Gigi so that I could bathe in that transcendent ecstasy of divine love. These three ideas—discipline, education, love—would fight for my attention throughout the rest of my life.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 39)
“Psychologists have written about how our relationship with our parents in childhood and early adolescence creates our ‘map’ for understanding love in adulthood. When we interact with our parents as children, some behaviors and attitudes win us attention and affection and other behaviors and attitudes cause us to feel abandoned, unsafe, and unloved. The behaviors and attitudes that win us affection often come to define what we understand as love.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 48)
“My mind at the time still correlated performance with love. The entire basis for my self-esteem was foundationally dependent upon whether my woman was happy. My self-image was inexorably bound up in women’s opinion and approval of me. I figured that since I was not receiving the love I so deeply craved, it had to be because of a deficiency in me as the lead character. If I had performed the role of ‘boyfriend’ better, she wouldn’t have cheated.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 142)
“‘As long as you do things for the approval of a woman,’ Michaela said, ‘you will never be free. That is a descending hell. And I’ll tell you—when a woman sees that she can bend you, she loses trust in you. We need you to be solid; we need your ‘yes’ to be a yes, and your ‘no’ to be a no. As long as you are twisting and contorting and selling yourself out for the affection of others, you will always be untrustworthy.’”
Will Smith, Will (Page 379)
“There is nothing that you can receive from the material world that will create inner peace or fulfillment. The truth is, ‘the Smile’ is generated through output. It’s not something you get, it’s something you cultivate through giving. In the end, it will not matter one single bit how well they loved you—you will only gain ‘the Smile’ based on how well you loved them.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 402)
“The physics of love and happiness are counterintuitive. As long as we are stuck in the need to receive—in the cycle of grasping and clinging and demanding that people and the world around us meet our needs—we will be locked into disappointment, anger, and misery. The sweet paradox is being fulfilled by giving, that your output precipitates the input—giving and receiving become simultaneous. To love and to be loved is the highest human reward and ecstasy. Allowing the best within you to serve and unleash the best within others is the most intense of human pleasures.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 402)
“Everyone is struggling. Everyone is having a hard time. Life can be brutal, chaotic, confusing, and excruciating. Our hearts are starving. Loving, giving, helping, serving, protecting, nourishing, empowering, and forgiving are the secrets of ‘the Smile.’ Can you imagine what it would feel like if someone loved you, gave you all you needed, helped you, served you, protected you, nourished you, empowered you, and forgave you?”
Will Smith, Will (Page 403)
“I like making friends, I thought. I began trying to listen to and observe what was going on in my head, and a painful realization washed across me: I wasn’t enjoying being with myself. In fact, I wanted to get away from myself as fast as I could. And it dawned on me, If I don’t want to be with me, why the fuck would anybody else wanna be with me?”
Will Smith, Will (Page 375)
“Nobody gives a shit about anything except how they feel. Feeling good is the most important thing to everyone, everywhere, at all times. We are choosing our words, actions, and behaviors in order to achieve a feeling that we deem positive. There’s nothing more important than feeling how we want to feel. And people determine whether or not you love them by how well they feel you honor their feelings.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 344)
“This relationship is our classroom—we are learning to cultivate care, concern, and compassion in the most intimate and difficult of circumstances. There are few things in life more challenging than being married. The intimacy tends to stir up and expose our most poisonous inner energies. If we can learn to love here, we can love anywhere.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 404)
If you enjoyed these quotes from Will, you should read Will Smith’s book in full. It comes warmly recommended:
![Will by Will Smith and Mark Manson [Book]](https://movemequotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Will.jpeg)
Book Overview: Will Smith’s transformation from a West Philadelphia kid to one of the biggest rap stars of his era, and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, is an epic tale—but it’s only half the story. Will is the story of how one person mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world’s biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.
Buy from Amazon! Listen on Audible!
Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. The Kindle edition of this book comes highly recommended on Amazon.
…Ready To (Finally) Put An End To The Self-Improvement Yo-Yo-Ing?
Our NEW Guide will teach you how to integrate self-improvement tasks into your life—for life—without requiring NAVY Seal level self-discipline or grit. Download now and get INSTANT access to:
- 30 Powerful, One Page Meditations
- 30 Pace Conscious Challenges
- 30 Original, Downloadable Illustrations
…Build habits that stick or your money back.
Written by Matt Hogan
Founder of MoveMe Quotes. On a mission to help busy people do inner work—for better mental health; for healing; for personal growth. Find me on Twitter / IG / Medium. I also share daily insights here. 🌱
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