River Phoenix Quotes

“River smiled sweetly at his tormentors and told them, "If you want to kick my ass, go ahead. Just explain to me why you're doing it."

After a confused pause, one of the skinheads said, "Ah, you wouldn't be worth it."

"We're all worth it, man," River said with a beatific smile. "We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“We're all worth it, man. We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“When it was Hearts turn, she related a vision she had: that River hadn't wanted to be born, preferring to stay with God in heaven. God had convinced him to go, and they haggled over how long, settling on twenty-three years.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“For River to discover himself in Rimbaud's life and Miller's prose was simultaneously self-aggrandizing and self-pitying. Tellingly, he was more interested in Miller's book than in Rimbaud's actual writing: he responded to Rimbaud not as a poet, but as a symbol.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“The film that has influenced me the most is probably Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho, with whom I had the chance to work while in the US. Seeing that movie during a time of my life in which I was exploring my sexuality and looking at the work of River Phoenix made me dream about acting in a film.”
― Giovanni Morassutti

“But River had an impact that far exceeded the number of films he had the chance to make; he seemed like he had the chance to be the brightest light of his generatiom”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind

“Although Ethan Hawke liked River Phoenix, he thought his defining quality was “naïve pretentiousness.” Hawke said, “To me, education helps you see that your weirdness is not unique. I doubt, though, that River, at age fourteen, had read a book. He thought his ideas on life and the environment were original. Because he’d never been to school, he had no social skills, and lacked a sense of what was appropriate conversation. And he had this peculiar way of anecdotalizing his past, living his life in the third person. You had the sense he was making his own mythology. I suppose we all do that, but River went to the extreme.”
― Gavin Edwards, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind