Matthew McConaughey is sharing four decades worth of life experience — from quitting weed to being “broke” — in his new book, Poems & Prayers.
“I’ve always relied on logic to make sense of myself and the world,” McConaughey, 55, writes in the introduction of the book, which hit shelves on Tuesday, September 16. “A prescriptionist at heart, I’ve always looked to reason to find the rhyme, the practical to get to the mystical, the choreography to find the dance, the proof to get to the truth, and reality to get to the dream. I’ve always believed that art emulates life, not the other way around.”
He continues, “I’ve been finding that tougher to do lately. Seems to me the facts have become unreliably overrated. So many of us today are out to prove that the truth is just an outdated nostalgic notion, that honesty, along with being correct and right, is now a deluded currency in our cultural economy. With an epidemic of half- cocked logic and illusions being sold as sound conclusions, it’s more than hard to know what to believe in; it’s hard to.”
Poems & Prayers is the third book McConaughey has published to date, after 2020’s Greenlights and 2023’s Just Because. It consists of a series of poems, “ditties,” song lyrics and prayers the Oscar winner has crafted since the age of 18, from his pre-fame days to his life as a husband and father. (McConaughey tied the knot with Camila Alves in 2012. The pair share three children: Levi, 17, Vida 15, and Livingston, 12. )
Keep scrolling for McConaughey’s biggest book revelations:
Burritos From a Bank
In one of his first poems, McConaughey recalls buying a burrito from a woman cooking food in the back of an abandoned bank.
“This is one of those ditties that made my day into a song,” he explains of the prose. “It all happened, including buying a no-tax two-buck burrito from a lady who had set up a stove in an abandoned bank. One of the best burritos I’ve ever had.”
The poem itself includes him looking for a girl named Nikki who has “shades for the eclipse,” dropping off his “trash,” getting “rations for my water” and writing “a tune for my wife, a poem for my daughter.”
The Process of Pooping
McConaughey delves into the details of his bathroom habits in one poem, noting that the meaning of the piece is exactly as it sounds.
“Forty miles south of Poteet, looking for a lid to rest my seat with my stomach in knots,
my prostate in a pinch,” he writes in the poem, emphasizing the urgency. “The clock was ticking, I was grumpy as a grinch. With the sun now rising, just past six a.m., found a roadside loo, and I went on in.”
After passing a janitor in the weigh in, McConaughey does his business. “See I consider a porta-potty an absolute win,” he shares. “Long as the first butt in the mornin’s mine on the porcelain.”
Alright, Alright, Alright
McConaughey seemingly explores the reputation he’s built as an easy-going guy in one poem, but stresses that he’s able to seem nonchalant because he cares.
“I love to be on time, and when I am, I don’t need a watch. I don’t just specifically mean appointments, I mean finding a pace and frequency where I’m not tardy for anything and never have to rush,” he explains. “People are always telling me, ‘You’re so laid back, so cool.’ Well, that’s got a lot to do with the fact that I’ve prepared and planned for the day ahead, which allows me to move deliberately, take my time, adapt, and saunter through the day instead of race through it.”
Talking About Exes?
McConaughey appears to discuss one tryst he had pre-marriage that wasn’t meant to last forever.
“Met a woman I liked and she became my friend, we turned into lovers, thought we’d make it until the end,” he says. “But as soon as we lined up hand in hand in the queue,
my eyes started turning a lighter shade of blue. Sometimes love just loses its shine, and sometimes livin’ early just gives you more time.”
All About Consequences
Poems & Prayers deals a lot with the concept of consequences and sin, with McConaughey pointing out that they can be negative and positive in nature.
”When we talk about consequences, everybody immediately thinks they’re only negative. In truth, consequences go both ways,” he writes in one section. “With every decision, choice, and action, there will be a give with the take, a credit with the debit, something desirable will happen and something unpleasant will happen, something good and something bad. We don’t give enough credit to the positive side of consequences, to the desirable outcome, to the good result, to what they can give us.”
Mr. Former Romantic Comedy
In another section, McConaughey explores the dichotomy of being a “nice person” and a “good person,” which he believes to be two different things. He also delves into his decision to stop starring in rom-coms after having a few blockbuster successes in the genre.
“I wrote this one in the late ’90s, just before I decided to stop doing the romantic comedies. People were always telling me, ‘Ah, man, you seem like such a nice guy.’ And hey, I got it; the rom-coms were entertaining and popular, and the men always ultimately acquiesced,” he shares. “But it reminded me of when I was a kid and the girls would say, ‘Oh, you’re so cute,’ and I was just dying for one of them to say, ‘You’re handsome.’”
He adds, “Aspiring to be just a nice guy is like short-sheeting yourself; you’re a nice guy, but what do you stand for? The nice guy’s easy to be around, but he goes along with everything. A good man’s different. He has things he stands for. It’s harder to be a good man.”
A section of the poem reads: “There’s a difference between a good man and a nice guy. A good man stands for certain ideals. And when those beliefs are contested, a good man is not a nice guy.”
Fame Challenges
McConaughey seemingly discusses the ups and downs of fame in the book, noting that the “comfort and convenience” one gets from “relying on the encore” will always “pale in comparison to a great concert.”
“The lenient quick fix you keep lending yourself, is pennies compared to the endless luxury you can afford,” one poem says. “The posture you pose in fifteen minutes of fame, is nothing compared to the legend of your character. The lies you tell may buy you some time, but the truth will make you immortal.”
What Matters
McConaughey discusses the things he deems important in life, naming his “health,” “family,” “marriage,” “career” and “relationship with God.”
“I’m always having to recalibrate and adjust the gauges to maintain balance,” he reveals. “ My career’s taking off and taking all my time? Whoops, relationship with my family and God starts slipping into the red. My kids and I are each other’s favorite people and my six pack’s ripped? Probably need to spend more time with my wife.”
Feeling Complacent
In a poem titled “Heartline,” McConaughey talks about being “famous and successful” but dealing with a “fear of complacency.”
“I had box office hits, was getting paid great, everything was easy, what else did I need? The problem was that not enough of it meant enough to me,” he explains before sharing the poem. “Yeah, I was succeeding, but was I making a profit? I was looking for some courage to throw a jackknife into my habitual rituals. I needed to bloody my own nose, make a change.”
The poem reads, “I’ve been running from my soul, skating on the surface, seeking transformation through transactions of a purchase. It’s a one way street to everything at all a lead pipe cinch for not far to fall. it’ll never get me high enough to see what’s down below I’m gonna need more elevation to heartline my show.”
Candy Crushing It
One poem appears to draw parallels between the iPhone game Candy Crush and real life.
“Candy Crush teaches fiscal responsibility, how to save and how to spend,” the poem claims. “Where the hints and tips are helpful, until you start to win. Then comes the bad advice, and their suggestions start to lie. Because only after you win the prize, do they blitz you with offers to buy.”
McConaughey writes that in the game, it’s the “best to decline the first offer” because “a better one will soon follow,” leading to winning “more games.”
He also alleges that the game teaches “time management,” and “how to make up your own mind in measured time.”
“That if you ask a friend for help they’ll usually be kind. And if they help you once,
they’ll probably ask you back double,” he adds. “Because sometimes in life you can and do, have to buy your way out of trouble.”
All About Woody
McConaughey opens up in a poem titled “Hills” about a trip he took with longtime pal Woody Harrelson to Vietnam, where he took the “long way home” and had to bike up an “excruciating hill.”
“I was between too far up to go back and not far enough up to continue, so I carried on,” he writes. “As I struggled to pedal through the pain, I realized, hills are just necessary parts of life’s terrain, there for the climbing.”
The bike ride, he says, was from the same trip where he and Harrelson went to a bar “at four p.m. and walked out twelve hours later.”
“After getting in the back seat of a cab to head home, Woody realized he had no idea where or what the name of our hotel was,” he explains. “That’s when the cab driver, who spoke very little English, turned around and said to him, “I cannot take you home if you do not know where you are going.”
Dedicated to His Loved Ones
While all of McConaughey’s poems about love remain vague, one in particular could very well be about his wife, Camila, and their children.
“Once a week I cry for thanks so my soul can catch its breath,” he proposes. “Because when you’re gone I’ll miss you, I love you until your death. Tears of joy for both hope and pain to have and lose what I have left.”
Sleeping Arrangements
McConaughey writes two poems about beds in Poems & Prayers. “Smaller Beds,” a poem about getting “rid of that king-size mattress” and sleeping “in a queen-size bed” with your spouse. There’s also “Daughter’s Bed,” seemingly about needing to take a rest while trying to be a good husband, father and friend to his loved ones.
“Need to lie down and rest my head, think I’ll take a nap in my daughter’s bed. Hopin’ on a hunch it’ll clear my mind, slow down my clock, get me back on time,” he says. “What do I forgive and where’s the buck stop here? Been forty- eight days since I had a beer. I ain’t quit nothin’, just hadn’t had any since, takin’ a peek on the other side of the fence.”
He continues later on in the poem about the exhaustion about taking care of his children, loving on his wife and showing up for life’s realities, saying that things feel simpler on the “innocence of cleaner sheets” that exists on his daughter’s bed.
“Where the nightmare this time is just a cold sweat, not a reminder of an unpaid debt,” he claims. “Cus sometimes we need to lie down and rest our head, take a little nap in our daughter’s bed.”
Valentine’s Day Breakup?
Aptly titled “Valentine’s Day,” McConaughey appears to discuss ending things with a former partner on Cupid’s birthday.
“Too many white roses, not enough red. ‘I wish you loved me as much as life,’ she said. ‘One last time, is it yay or nay?’ And that’s when my feet stepped away,” he writes.
No More Dope
McConaughey opens up about his decision to stop smoking weed in one poem, sharing what led to the decision.
“Back in the days when I used to smoke weed, it was Mexican dirt weed. The kind where you passed the joint around, laughed, got the munchies, and hopefully snuck off for some good sex,” he writes, before noting that marajuana started to change over time.
“Instead of being a tiny toke of easy inspiration, it turned into a paralysis puff of f***ing analysis,” he says. “Suddenly, I’d find myself stuck for hours staring at that one grain in that one piece of wood in my ceiling rafters, thinking it was trying to tell me something important. It wasn’t.”
McConaughey reveals he even missed his own birthday party one year because he “couldn’t quit playing one song over and over in my car” while high, noting that it was somehow “more important” to jam out to Janet Jackson’s hit “That’s the Way Love Goes” than show up to his own celebration.
“If every dance step matters too much, we never find our rhythm,” he says. “If we give every note too much credit, we’ll never hear the song. That’s why I quit smoking.”
Being His Worst Self
”We’ve all been caught putting other people down to make ourselves feel better,” McConaughey says in one intro to an untitled poem. “Applauding louder for their miss than our make. It’s a false sense of security we have, feeling better when other people lose than we do when we win.”
The poem, meanwhile, notes a time when he was trying to “criticize my way to superiority” and exaggerate the faults of my neighbor” while “taking pride in the applause of its uncharitable tune.”
“Forgive me, and at least give me the courage to shut the f*** up instead,” he quips.
Holding Out on Marriage
McConaughey seemingly faces his previous hesitancy to tie the knot in one poem, writing, “Too many affairs, too scared to marry, I’d scream for help but my voice won’t carry.”
Turning 5-0
A few years after turning 50, McConaughey reflected on growing older, saying the number made him reflect on his “morality, my legacy, my relevance, and admit that the blue-eyed blonder days don’t last forever.” He jokes that he’s going to be one the “Thursday side of life’s week one day, if he’s not already.”
Admitting His Wrongs
McConaughey explains his process of admitting his wrongs in life and course-correcting his mistakes, but highlights the importance of finding forgiveness.
”Now, I’m the first one to say that if I’ve done you wrong, sincerely apologized, and you’ve forgiven me, then my first order of business is to start doing whatever I can do not to have to say I’m sorry again,” he explains in one section of the book. “At the same time, if we have any ideals about how the world should be, about how we should act, we need to understand the value of compassion and forgiveness to get there. To some extent, we have to believe in rehabilitation.”
McConaughey adds that some people “screw up” out of ignorance and not knowing “better,” while some know “why” they messed up and want to make “genuine amends” for their behavior. The actor says that if someone wants to apologize, it’s his belief we should “give them a chance.”
Vida’s Prayer
The True Detective star shares a poem his daughter, Vida, wrote at the age of 5.
“I love everybody in the universe except the bad guys. And thank you, God, for bad guys, because we can still make them into good guys,” Vida’s poem says.
Facing His Stalker
McConaughey writes about being in Texas and attending a virtual court date to “get a restraining order on a stalker” — a woman who was allegedly claiming they had a “baby” together.
“That never happened and I don’t mean maybe. Left an hour early so I’d be sure and have time, for pullin’ over to write these rhymes in my mind,” he writes, later adding, “The lady accusing me never showed in court. I guess the truth was above her station, but the show went on, in CONtinuation.”
“Well, that was a success, just not the way I expected. Makes me more suspicious of those we’ve elected,” he continues. “Took two years to get the case to this court, where his honor laid the law down without retort. The verdict was swift, took less than a minute, that’s a whole lotta prep to just be handed the pennant.”
Being Broke
One poem, from 1994, recaptures McConaughey’s life in Los Angeles before he hit it big.
”I wrote this in Hollywood, 1994. With no agent, sleeping on a friend’s couch, and 2,000 bucks to my name, I felt like I was running out of time,” he shares. “I was trying to convince myself to be patient, be cool, to not be in a rush — that I was on time, and not behind it.”
The poem reads, “Today, give me the heart to know what feels right, the mind to argue if it doesn’t, and the gut to decide what to do from there.”
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