Michael J. Fox

Pain is temporary, film is forever.

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

(on his future wife Tracy Pollan) One day, she came back from lunch with bad breath and I said "Whoa, scampi for lunch?", and she said "You are the rudest son of a bitch I have ever met in my life" and I was immediately attracted to her like "Who is this woman?!". Show less «

[on being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease] People always ask me if I say to myself "Why me?" and I tell them, "Why not me?".

If 2 + 2 = 4 every time, what good is it? That's no fun.

In every aspect, I have been blessed with the opportunity to work toward leaving an impact on the world and on the lives around me and to be a partner in the critical research for answers. Show less «

[on Back to the Future Part II (1989)] I think this movie's gonna blow people away. It's just everything. It's everything... everything you go to movies for. Show less «

A creative mess is better than idle tidiness.

When you're a short actor you stand on apple boxes, you walk on a ramp. When you're a short star everybody else walks in a ditch.

After a year or so, I really thought I was Howard Hughes. Here I was at eighteen years old, getting all these checks...

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

[on The Michael J. Fox Show (2013)] My view of life is colored by humor and looking at the best in any situation. One of the things I love about the show is that it gives me the opportunity to tell people who have disabilities or different challenges that they deal with, that you can step back into life. You can be a part of life. You just have to allow for the facts of your situation. Instead of hiding that or being in denial about it, put it out there. That's what I'm doing. Show less «

You hear people say "Keep your head down" when times are tough. But I find the opposite is better: Keep your head up!

In a happy marriage, there are no heroes. It's gotta be steam all the way!

[2014] Look at the choices you have, not at the choices that have been taken a way from you. In them, there are whole worlds of strength and new ways to look at things. Show less «

[In 2001, on his "Family Ties" co-star] Justine Bateman who played my sister Mallory. Two names that I think now become part of lexicon of American girls names that I don't think either one of them were really prevalent before. You meet so many 15 and 16-year old girls whose names are Justine and Mallory now that it's interesting. She was amazing. She came from a acting background in the sense that she and her brother Jason Bateman are both talented actors. We immediately bonded. Our three-year age difference shrunk over time, so we got closer over time. She was fantastic. She was nominated for an Emmy, and she didn't win, and she was nominated again, and I was really sad that she didn't win. She did work that was undervalued. She would set me up and I come back with something. There is a generous way to do that, and an ungenerous way to do that. But she would set up lines that were beautiful. She would talk about her character's boyfriend, "Nick and I--it's like we've one heart, we've one mind." She would leave it out there, and I could just wait and wait and say, "Who's using it tonight?" That kind of partnership, that kind of willingness to make the thing work. She was tremendously talented. It was probably difficult for her to be that attractive and that successful and that young, but I think she did a pretty good job at it. She was always fantastic to work with. Show less «