Success Quote by Richard Dreyfuss

Happiness has a bad rap because our culture is suspicious of anything that sounds easy, soft, or self-indulgent. Richard Dreyfuss, speaking as an actor who came up in an era that lionized angst, is poking at a familiar moral hierarchy: suffering equals depth; striving equals virtue; contentment equals complacency. His little swerve - "Oh, yes it should" - isn’t just a rebuttal. It’s a performance beat. He sets up the pious refrain ("People say...") and then punctures it with a blunt, almost dad-like certainty, as if he’s tired of watching smart people talk themselves out of wanting to feel good.

The intent is corrective: to re-legitimize happiness as an adult ambition, not a childish reward. The subtext is that the anti-happiness line often functions as a social shaming mechanism. Don’t aim for happiness, aim for greatness; don’t chase joy, chase productivity; don’t choose a life that fits, choose a life that impresses. Dreyfuss is calling that bluff. He’s implying that a life organized around looking serious can end up emotionally bankrupt, even if it reads well on paper.

Context matters because Dreyfuss’s career is a case study in public success paired with private turbulence. Coming from that lived messiness, “happiness” isn’t a Hallmark slogan; it’s a hard-won, practical North Star. The quote works because it’s defiant without being preachy: a compact argument against glamorizing misery as a badge of authenticity.