75+ Inspirational Jim Carrey Quotes About Love, Life, And Optimism

Updated: October 19th, 2022

Jim Carrey is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, impressionist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, and producer.

Jim Carrey has been a key actor in numerous successful films, including major studio productions such as Batman Forever (1995), Dumb and Dumber To (2014), and The Truman Show (1998).

He is known for his highly energetic slapstick performances on film, earning him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in 1994. He has received four Golden Globe Awards in total, as well as one win apiece that included four more Golden Globe Award nominations.

We've put together an incredible collection of the best Jim Carrey quotes to read.

Here they are:

75+ Inspirational Jim Carrey Quotes About Love, Life, And Optimism

Inspiring Jim Carrey Quotes On Love

A lot of good love can happen in ten years. Either you're the one erasing or you're the one being erased. - Jim Carrey


I haven't been as wild with my money as somebody like me might have been. I've been very safe, and very conservative with investments. I don't blow money. I don't have a ton of houses. I know things can go away. I've already had that experience. - Jim Carrey


Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interested. - Jim Carrey


I practiced making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course. - Jim Carrey


I really want to love somebody. I do. I just don't know if it's possible forever and ever. - Jim Carrey


My life is not unlike Truman's. I can't go anywhere. - Jim Carrey


My report card always said, 'Jim finishes first and then disrupts the other students. - Jim Carrey


One thing I hope I'll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again. - Jim Carrey


Creative people don't behave very well generally. If you're looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you're gonna be depressed really fast. I don't have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She's my first priority. - Jim Carrey


I love playing ego and insecurity combined. - Jim Carrey


Powerful Jim Carrey Quotes On Life

Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them. - Jim Carrey


Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes. - Jim Carrey


It is better to risk starving to death than surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left? - Jim Carrey


I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.' - Jim Carrey


I'm very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful. - Jim Carrey


I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interested. - Jim Carrey


Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they're eating sandwiches. - Jim Carrey


Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity. - Jim Carrey


Originality is really important. - Jim Carrey


Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don't limit myself. - Jim Carrey


I tend to stay up late, not because I'm partying but because it's the only time of the day when I'm alone and don't have to be performing. - Jim Carrey


I just want to be myself. - Jim Carrey


Ya know what I do almost every day? I wash. Personal hygiene is part of the package with me. - Jim Carrey


I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me. - Jim Carrey


My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian. - Jim Carrey


That's the trouble with being me. At this point, nobody gives a damn what my problem is. I could literally have a tumor on the side of my head and they'd be like, 'Yeah, big deal. I'd eat a tumor every morning for the kinda money you're pulling down.' - Jim Carrey


I'm the first to admit this whole salary thing is getting out of control. The final analysis, it's still about the work. - Jim Carrey


I don't care if people think I am an actor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainted. - Jim Carrey


The money can be a hindrance to someone like me because the danger is that you start thinking, 'Is that a $20 million take?' That kind of thing, and being self-critical. - Jim Carrey


I need privacy. I would think that because what I do makes a lot of people happy that I might deserve a little bit of respect in return. Instead, the papers try to drag me off my pedestal. - Jim Carrey


I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin' wealthy. - Jim Carrey


If I had never ventured beyond being a stand-up comic, then I would be sitting in my house today working on my Leonardo DiCaprio impression. - Jim Carrey


You know, I live a monastic lifestyle. No, I do. I do live in extremes, basically. I go back and forth. Once every six months, I'll have a day where I eat more chocolate than has ever been consumed by a human being. - Jim Carrey


My dad was like a stage mother he always pushed me to do what I wanted. - Jim Carrey

Favorite Jim Carrey Quotes On Acting

I absolutely want to have a career where you make'em laugh and make'em cry. It's all theater. - Jim Carrey


It's nice to finally get scripts offered to me that aren't the ones Tom Hanks wipes his butt with. - Jim Carrey


My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry. - Jim Carrey


I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I'd love that. But I don't need to be. I just want to be here. That's it. - Jim Carrey


I got a lot of support from my parents. That's the one thing I always appreciated. They didn't tell me I was being stupid; they told me I was being funny. - Jim Carrey


I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do because I don't want to lose them.' - Jim Carrey


I think I could go away tomorrow. I've already accomplished something. It's such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself. - Jim Carrey


My mother was a professional sick person; she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It's just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she's the daughter of alcoholics who'd leave her alone at Christmas time. - Jim Carrey


Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn't eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower! - Jim Carrey


If you aren't in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret. - Jim Carrey


People need the motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. - Jim Carrey


If you've got a talent, protect it. - Jim Carrey


My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh. - Jim Carrey


I've tried everything. I've done therapy, I've done colonics. I went to a psychic who had me running around town buying pieces of ribbon to fill the colors in my aura. Did the Prozac thing. - Jim Carrey


I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I'm just trying to create a good one for myself. - Jim Carrey


There was a time when people said, 'Jim if you keep on making faces, your face will freeze like that.' Now they just say, 'Pay him!' - Jim Carrey


I'm a hard guy to live with. I'm like a caged animal. I'm up all night walking around the living room. It's hard for me to come down from what I do. - Jim Carrey


I've arrived at the place if I'm not taking a career risk, I'm not happy. If I'm scared, then I know I'm being challenged. - Jim Carrey


It's hard for anybody who's been with me not to feel starved for affection when I'm making love to my ideas. Maybe it's not meant for me to settle down and be married. - Jim Carrey


Morgan Freeman is so classy. He's so cool. He's so scary. - Jim Carrey


Some nights it was a melee, literally, where I'd be standing trying to defend myself for what I was doing. People would be screaming at me to do my old act, and getting actually violent and angry at me. - Jim Carrey


Ever since I started to get the recognition I've picked out certain fans and reverse-stalked them. - Jim Carrey


What I have in common with the character 'Truman' is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started. - Jim Carrey


I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started. - Jim Carrey


We had problems like all families but we had a lot of love. I was extremely loved. We always felt we had each other. - Jim Carrey


Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn't been seen? Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that's really worthwhile. - Jim Carrey


I try to do something the audience might not have seen before. Like if I'm gonna kiss a girl I wanna kiss her as a girl has never been kissed. Like maybe I would kick her legs out from under her and catch her right before she hits the ground and then kisses her. - Jim Carrey


I'm so wrapped up in my work that it's often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, and my relationship with Holly has suffered from this. - Jim Carrey


But, you know, you can't be a star at home. - Jim Carrey


When the first big paycheque with 'Dumb And Dumber' hit, I went: 'Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?' But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe. - Jim Carrey


It was such a leap in my career when 'Truman Show' came along. It's always been a long process for me insofar as recognition goes, but that's OK because you appreciate it when it comes. - Jim Carrey


I don't make it in regular channels, and that's okay for me. - Jim Carrey


I used to draw a lot. If my mother would ask me to do something else, I'd have a hairy conniption. I'd just go crazy. - Jim Carrey


For some reason I did something where I realized I could get a reaction. That was when I broke out of my shell at school, because I really didn't have any friends or anything like that and I just kind of was going along, and then finally I did this zany thing and all of a sudden I had tons of friends. - Jim Carrey


My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh. - Jim Carrey


My soul is not contained within the limits of my body. My body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul. - Jim Carrey


I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer. - Jim Carrey


As far as I can tell, it’s just about letting the universe know what you want and then working toward it while letting go of how it comes to pass. - Jim Carrey


Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself. - Jim Carrey


People need the motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation. - Jim Carrey


I’m making a conscious choice to see challenges as beneficial so that I can deal with them in the most productive way. - Jim Carrey

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Samantha Walls

I'm Sam Walls, COO of Starter Story - a platform and community for entrepreneurs and future founders to learn what it takes to build a great business. I joined the Starter Story team approximately 3 years ago, with the goal of providing our readers with the best, most valuable, and inspirational content on the internet.