"Animal rights aren’t separate from other social, environmental or political issues. What do art and science mean if the Earth is falling apart, if we feel no responsibility to give it space to breathe? We’re very selfish with this planet, and the way we use animals is one of the symptoms of our selfishness. But when you love animals, you feel at one with the little bit of nature that’s left on Earth.” - River Phoenix

"River was a product of his own goodness.It was almost like he was too good to be on this earth. Like, everyone else steps over the homeless people. River could not step over a homeless person, he had to rehabilitate them and give them a life. And he was incredibly honest- one minute I’d want to club him because he was driving me crazy and then he’d say something that was out there. I’d be like, ‘I have to go to my room and recover from that statement’. On set he’d throw himself on you and say ’ I like you so much’ and you never meet people like that. But when I met Keanu I was like ’Oh my god, this is exactly like River" - Sandra Bullock

“River Phoenix was a good friend of mine. He was someone who I’ll always hold very close to my heart. He was someone that understood a lot of things about me that no-one else has ever understood about me…probably the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life." -Flea

"I would love to see what kind of choices he would be making now if he was still around, some of the characters that he would have played. I mean, to me he was like a rock star, you know, he had it all: he had the looks, he had a great name, he had an attitude, an energy, an excitement about him. He was instinctively like a, he was a rebel, you know? He was kind of Bob Dylan to me, at times, and he had a lot to say. And I’ve never seen too many interviews by him, but the ones that I saw were pretty electric, pretty… he was switched on, definitely.
[on which actors inspired him] Definitely River Phoenix is somebody that I thought, ‘This guy is very cool.’ I wanted to be like him when I was a kid.” - Jim Sturgess

Reeves is the first to arrive for dinner at Suite 55 in the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. He looks a bit dazed from a run-in with the paparazzi at a Hollywood screening. “I just stopped on my bike to ask the guard, like, what movie was playing,” he says. “And suddenly all of the guys around me are yelling ‘Keanu, look up!’” Did he? “No way, man. I beat it out of there. It was weird.” He grins, and then offers to grate some Parmesan cheese for the pasta, first asking what side of the grater to use. Soon Phoenix shows up. Immediately, he’s at Reeves’s side in the kitchen, peeling garlic. Within minutes, though, the two escape to the balcony. Phoenix lights up a Camel. He cocks an eyebrow: “Doesn’t figure, huh?” Then he exhales. “I know. I should quit.”

"The River Phoenix I will remember is the gentle young man I met three years ago at a grape boycott rally in front of a supermarket in Miami. He had already had a brilliant career as an actor, was on the cover of all the teen magazines and had just been nominated for an Oscar. His clothes looked fresh, his hair was creased—apparently from wearing a baseball cap—and he wore a small, St. Francis-style wooden cross around his neck.
I wondered what this Hollywood star was doing at a modest little rally in Miami on that day, with no sign of any young fans around, just a few dozen middle-aged do-gooders like myself. He had been fasting for the grape-picker cause, and he gave a little talk over a megaphone that ended with “God bless you.” He hugged a Mexican American next to him, to whom he passed along his fast.” - Richard Raleigh

“The agonizing thing is, I was witness to the greatness of a personality that never fully got to flourish. I will never see him play Hamlet, and he would have been one of the great ones. I wanted to see him do the most emotional work out there, and it still pains me that I never will. ” - Judd Hirsch

"I’ve got only very fond memories of River. We spent six weeks together in Utah, all day and every evening. I found him a remarkable young man and I can’t believe looking back that he was only 23 at the time. He was a very old head on young shoulders and was absolutely delightful, very committed and serious." - Jonathan Pryce

 ”I should see some of his films. I should, but in a way I just don’t want to spoil it, you know? I don’t want to let too much information into my head. I like the idea that the only Brando film I’ve seen is Streetcar Named Desire. One day I’ll see (some of these films) but I have to do a few more movies before I start getting involved in past things, because it probably can influence you very heavily.” - River Phoenix, about James Dean’s movies

"It’s just the expectation that you were going to work with him again. I recently thought of an upcoming project: Oh, there’s… No, there isn’t River. It’s his uniqueness that is gone. I think it was Billy Wilder who said when Ernst Lubitsch died, ‘Ach, no more Ernst Lubitsch films.’ They were just his films. Now it’s no more River Phoenix characters"  - Peter Weir

"The first thing that River said to me when we met was ‘I’m sorry, I took your role.’ I said ‘no, it’s quite alright’" - Mike Parker