Did Robin Williams say, "You will have bad times, but they will always open your eyes to things you weren't paying attention to"?

For many years, this quote has been attributed to the American actor on social networks and entertainment sites. We found out if this encouraging message really came from Williams.

Posts with the phrase “You will have bad times, but they will always open your eyes to things you weren’t paying attention to” under the guise of a Robin Williams quote are very often posted on “VKontakte" For example, in the Naked Movie public since 2021, these words are authored by the actor published seven times, with a total of 25,000 likes and 807,000 views. Similar publications can be found on Facebook* (examples here, here And here) And Instagram*, A Also on numerous entertaining websites With selections quotes.

In English, the phrase usually sounds like this: “You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” Outside the RuNet, these words are also often attributed to Williams - for example, a 2015 post on Reddit collected 4600 pluses. Similar situation observed and on foreign resources with quotes from celebrities.

If we enter the phrase we are interested in into the search bar on YouTube, then among the results the platform will give out excerpts from the feature film "Good Will Hunting"(1997). In this film, Williams played psychologist Sean Maguire, for whose role he later received Oscar Award in the category “Best Supporting Actor”.

In one of the scenes in the film, Williams' character, addressing his interlocutor, pronounces the searched words are about bad times, but the wording is slightly different from the one common on the Internet: “'Cause you will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” The passage below contains the required fragment begins at the 00:15 mark.

The script for this dramatic film was written by the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who starred in it - for their work they also received a statuette from the American Film Academy in the category “Best Original Screenplay.”

Since the statement is not attributed to the character, but to Williams, a logical question arises: maybe this phrase was not in the script and the actor himself came up with it on the set? Actually in scenarios There's this line from Williams' character - although it's only slightly different from the on-screen version: "'Cause you'll have your bad times, which wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to."

This isn't the only time Williams has been credited with a quote from a character he played. For example, previously "Verified" sorted it out saying that the worst thing in life is dying alone. This phrase was taken from the movie “The Best Dad Ever.”

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: “Verified” screenshot / still from the movie “Good Will Hunting”

Incorrect quote attribution

What do our verdicts mean?

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