Love Quote by Peter Fonda

Courage is doing double duty here: it names a virtue, sure, but it also functions as a personal talisman. Peter Fonda isn’t praising bravery in the abstract so much as confessing a reliance on language itself. The little burst of invocation - "God, I love that word" - has the sound of someone talking off-script, caught by genuine feeling. It’s an actor’s tell: the moment when performance drops and attachment shows.

The subtext is that courage, for Fonda, isn’t only about daring stunts or counterculture swagger; it’s about survival in a profession built on judgment. Actors trade in risk constantly: the risk of looking foolish, of being misread, of aging in public, of betting your identity on roles you can’t fully control. Naming "courage" becomes a way to dignify that daily exposure, to frame vulnerability as choice rather than accident.

Then he pivots to the real thesis: "Words are so important to me". That’s not preciousness; it’s craft. Fonda came out of an era when Hollywood’s old myth machine was cracking and New Hollywood’s antiheroes were taking over. In that world, being "cool" was often marketed as effortless. Fonda’s line punctures that myth: meaning is made, and it’s made with words. Even in a visual medium, the vocabulary you cling to shapes what you can imagine yourself becoming. He’s telling you courage starts as a word you dare to take seriously.