Vince Vaughn

I moved out at 18. I always studied classes and trained a lot, you know. I think nowadays is such a different time because there’s so many channels promoting the celebrity aspect of things.

[on “The Cell”] I didn’t really want to do it, from reading the script. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It was (Cell director) Tarsem (Singh) and his visuals that made me want to do it. It’s almost like you walk through a museum exhibit of an artist in a dark period of his life.

I loved Old School. I thought Old School was very different than a lot of the comedies that had come out. And that character I liked. I tried to ground him very much in reality and play him very much finding things important to him that are somewhat ridiculous.

[on quitting smoking] I quit smoking four months ago and since then I have been biting-chewing-fidgeting with anything that isn’t nailed down. I quit cold turkey. I was up to two packs a day, I’m coughing, my eyes are red, I don’t have energy, I’m not even enjoying it, so I just said, ‘That’s it.’ I think it might’ve been easier if I went with Nicorette or one of those supplements, but I just don’t get that. Let’s see, I’m addicted to something, so I know! Let’s pop some pills to get over it! Yeah, that makes sense. But now I find myself in conversations where people are looking at me and I’m salivating all over myself. This is how pathetic and sad it is: you start thinking, ‘Who am I without a cigarette in my hand?’

My father’s name is Vernon, and my mother liked the initials double V, so she named my sisters Victoria and Valerie. That’s cool- except when the dogs start getting V names.

[On taking a pay cut to make a documentary] I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel.

Do not neglect your life skills, which should include a healthy dose of financial education.

There was no word dyslexia when I was a kid. You were just dumb.

My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake — but for the future of our nation’s sake. Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not our military preparedness — for armed might is worthless if we lack the brainpower to build world peace; not our productive economy — for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government – for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return.

I don’t care what their [Guns N’ Roses] record is. If you need a blood donor and the only person who can give you a transfusion is Hitler, you take the blood.

Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

What I’m learning is that there is so much to unlearn.

We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.

Higher education cannot be a luxury reserved just for a privileged few. It is an economic necessity for every family. And every family should be able to afford it.

That experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.

Most of all we need an education system which will create an educated mind. This is a mind not simply a repository of information and skills, but a mind that is a source of creative skepticism, characterized by a willingness to challenge old assumptions and to be challenged, a spaciousness of outlook, and convictions that are deeply held, but which new facts and new experiences can always modify. It means an educational system which does not simply equip the students to adjust to society, but which enables the student to challenge and to modify, and at times reject, if necessary, the received wisdom of his elders.

You must unlearn what you have learned.