When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up.

I was in Kashmir last weekend. Went to visit one of my sweaters.

If we had 3 million exhibitionists and only one voyeur, nobody could make any money.

Bullfights are hugely popular because you can sit comfortably with a hot dog and possibly watch a man die. It won't be me, but I can sit comfortably and watch it.

I'd still like to see 'Survivor' minus the planned show-biz parts. That would be the purest form of show business - I want to see someone so hungry that they eat somebody else's foot.

It's better to be known by six people for something you're proud of than by 60 million for something you're not.

Even if you didn't see the movie, you'd see two words you'd never seen put together before - comedy and Muslim. Comedy is friendly - it's the least offensive word in our language.

When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up.

I'm not interesting enough on my own that you'd want to see a film about me.

I come from the place where I am thinking 'I have put my blood on the pages.'

'2001' is a really interesting movie because it came out in 1968, and everybody thought that that was possible, and look how ridiculous that was. We don't have ships like that, and you know, nobody in 1968 was going, 'Oh, that'll never happen!' But of course it never happened. We're not even close to it.

'Drive' came to me because the casting director knew my manager and called and said, 'You've always talked to me about Albert wanting to play the heavy. I think he should read this.' My ears just perked up.

'Finding Nemo' has spawned so many sort of emotions over the years. I don't even know that you could really understand exactly what parents and kids are seeing in it, but they can see a lot of different stuff.

All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that's all people know how to do when they're improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other.

As an actor, if you're just sitting and staring and you don't know who you are in your own mind, it's vacant. And sometimes the camera is an X-ray machine, it can pick it up.

Basically, I still have the privacy that all celebrities crave, except for those celebrities who feel that privacy reflects some kind of failure on their part.

Be generous and you can be the best person who ever lived.

By the way, movies are like sporting events in that you're as good as the movie you're in. You can sit in a room for 20 years and go do a movie and you can just kill in it and you move to the head of the line again. By the same token, you can do five movies a year and if they're dreck, it's nothing.

Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

How many people didn't get a part who would have been better than the person who got the part? Thousands.

I attempt to create a form of seriocomic entertainment to either delight, enlighten, or disgust, whichever you'd like. In terms of making motion pictures, I write and direct and act. I guess you'd say I'm a filmmaker.

I can't not put humor in a book.

I cast unusual people in my movies.

I did years of summer stock. I sort of only wanted to be an actor. And then at 19, I was funny, and I had some of these bits that I did for friends, and I immediately could get on television.

I don't know how, where, and why the idea for 'Defending Your Life' began; the idea had been bouncing around for a while. Stories like that sort of have to bounce. They don't come out of nowhere. I went through my own period of life with sort of everything turning upside down, and wondering, 'Why is it this way?'

I don't know; I guess they'll never make another 'Nemo.' I see they're making another 'Monsters, Inc.' I had a wonderful idea for them. I swear to God, I think there could be a great sequel to 'Nemo' where the fish never will leave home. He just won't leave. 'Getting Rid of Nemo.' Right, 'You're 30 years old! Get out of here!'

I don't see many explosions or ten-car crashes in the course of my life, so I don't put them into my movies. I would love to live in a society where 'My Dinner with Andre' made $100,000,000. Then I would be in the mainstream. I could do that stuff easier than I could do 'Meatballs.'

I don't think the goal is, 'How big a star did you ever become?' I think the goal is, 'Were you able to express yourself?'

I don't think the goal is, 'How big a star did you ever become?' I think the goal is, 'Were you able to express yourself?' And if you're able to say yes, in any field, you've won. If you paint, write, do mosaics, knit - if it's solving that part of your brain saying, 'I need to do this,' you've won.

I don't want to be the one to break it to you, but the future ain't that funny.

I guess 'The Player' was a pretty good L.A. movie. And 'Chinatown.' Was there ever a better L.A. movie about a certain period in L.A.? That was terrific.

I guess I was the class clown - with a name like Albert Einstein, you don't hide in the back. I'd read the school bulletin to the class, and I'd add activities and make stuff up. It was good, a good 10 minutes every morning.

I had a very wise person tell me that he thinks marriage, when you're younger, you keep thinking you can fix things. That's what people do. And you can't really fix anything. It shouldn't be a massive difficult thing every day. Life's difficult enough.

I just like making people laugh, and buried in that I like to bring up topics and start discussions.

I like movies about failing.

I like the acting. It's how I started, and I sort of feel that if I don't give it a little shot now, and I go back, then I'm pretty much done with it. I mean, at what age am I going to do it at? Although, when you see Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow doing it, I guess the answer is 80.

I made my living in comedy, but I'm not a silly person. I've got all these sides to me. Even in my movies that I've written myself, the characters sometimes border on great anger or nutsiness or other kinds of behavior. I'm not just doing fart jokes for two hours.

I never liked going in the ocean.

I never wanted to be a director.

I started on television. I had five years of network television before I ever got up on a stage. The first thing I ever did was in 1967. This guy Bill Keene had a little talk show at noon, and Gary Owens took over for a week. He knew about this dummy bit I used to do, this ventriloquist thing, and I was on 'Keene at Noon.'

I studied acting at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh because I figured a good comedian certainly could act.

I take anything other than 'you big pig!' as a compliment.

I think I present a different side of a male character: a side that is not John Wayne-like, a side that is, in fact, destructible. To some people, that is refreshing, and to other people, especially if they don't know me, it may be disturbing.

I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.

I wrote this book, '2030,' and I was careful in the book not to overdo the future because I don't think it comes that fast.

I'm a member of the Academy, but I don't know who all the other Academy members are. It's not like a politician who knows who is in the Iowa caucus.

I'm a strong fellow.

I'm not Elvis. I don't get chased by paparazzi.

I'm not a big fan of the post-Armageddon stories, where Denzel Washington is walking around in a torn coat.