9 Best Paul Walker's Quotes: Learn to Listen to Your Heart

Paul Walker was an American actor who was best known for his role as Brian O’Conner in The Fast and the Furious movie series.  At the age of 40, he died in a car accident.  Not only that he was an actor, he was also a philanthropist that has some very interesting sayings.  The following is a list of some of Paul Walker’s best quotes.  

1. “I hope I’m in a position to make stuff that I really want to make as opposed to stuff that I just have to make for money reasons, or to sustain a certain marquee value.”

Making money is important.  But to live a more meaningful life, find something that is worth doing or making that you can make living with.  If you try hard enough, with a little bit of luck, you can eventually find something that you are good at and that you want to do.  When that happens, making money is the natural outcome of keeping doing your job.  

2. “I don’t care what it is in life: listen to your heart. If you do, no matter what, you win.” 

I feel like this quote from Paul Walker is a modern version of Carl Yung's famous quote - “Who looks outside, dreams; Who looks inside, awakes”.  We can get information from the outside and I am not denying this an important part of growth.  The point is that, eventually, we have to ask ourselves - What is real? What is noise? What is relevant? What do I actually want? Do I actually want it or does my ego want it?  Is what I am doing moving me towards my goal or away from my goal?  Remember that no one can answer these kinds of deep and important questions for you.  

3. “If you spend any time with a man, you’ll realize that we’re all still little boys.”

This quote hints the importance of mentorship.  A lot of times, meeting someone who has a lot of experience in your field can point you to the right direction and save you a lot of time.   Not everyone is so fortunate that he or she can meet the right mentor in the real world.  The fortunate part is that books can be the good mentors that you have always been looking for.  Great books are great lessons from the greatest people.  If you want to get better, read.  In this era where books are so accessible that you can even listen to audiobooks when you walk or on your commute, there is no excuse not to read.  

4. “My philosophy is: If you can’t have fun, there’s no sense in doing it.”

This quote again stressed the importance of doing something that you like.  I truly believe that most people can find something that they like to do, they are good at, and they can make living with.  Trying to find it or not is a choice.  There are going to be tradeoffs and obstacles along the way.  If you really want to choose to stick to doing what makes money and what you have zero interest in doing, that’s completely fine.  Just beware that it’s your choice and don’t whine.    

5. “Sometimes the hurdles aren’t really hurdles at all. They’re welcome challenges, tests.”  

Life is a very interesting game that you will see obstacles every now and then.  Everyone has obstacles.  If you can treat obstacles calmly and do the best you get with them, you are passing the tests and you are getting to the next level.  

6. “Maybe this is just horribly bad, but I think I’ve had enough successes to where the journey is more important to me now. There’s no guarantee, no matter what. We get one run in life.”

There are stages in life.  If you have worked hard and smart enough for a long enough period of time, chances are that you will get to a level where you have much more freedom.  For example, you will have more financial freedom and more mental freedom.  (By mental freedom, I mean that you will be able to be more rational and mindful that you can think in a much wider and freer way.)  By that time, you can enjoy your journey even more fully.  For example, you can work on a job without having concern of how much you get paid.  Having said that, we should be mindful enough to learn to enjoy the process even when we are not yet at that next stage.  

7. “I learned a long time ago that if you subscribe and believe the good, you have to believe the bad. My measure is my heart and what I know.”

Everything has its goods and bads.  Most of the time, goods and bads are relative and they depend on perspectives.  It usually doesn’t make sense to say whether a thing is completely good or completely bad.  If you can completely understand that and accept that, the next time you encounter something “bad”, try to realize that it comes with the “good” thing you choose to have and the “good” part and the “bad” part are inseparable.  

8. “I wanna work with good people. I don’t want to work with screaming, yelling directors who’ve got daddy issues. I just don’t want to deal with those guys.”

One very important life lesson is that we have to try our very best to stay away from toxic people.  At the same time, understand that the world has toxic people and you can’t completely avoid them.  However, when you can, stay away from them because they waste your time and bring you negative energy.  

9. “You know, all that really matters is that the people you love are happy and healthy. Everything else is just sprinkling on the sundae.” 

Life is both simple and hard.  It’s hard to see it in a simple way.  But once you are able to do it, you can find the true source of happiness in your life and take good care of it.  Everything else is small stuff.