When you start out as a filmmaker, you do parodies, because you can't really compete on a studio level.

In the old days the studios guided your career. Now it's all up to you.

I've always loved movies about con men. I think con men are as American as apple pie.

I didn't have a normal background - I was completely demented from a very early age!

It's always good to have no expectations when you see a film. Then you can be pleasantly disappointed or surprised.

I hate tests. It's a really lousy way to judge a person's ability.

It's become very popular in contemporary films to have the twist ending.

I'm actually really opposed to the death penalty.

You don't really get to pick and chose what you would like to be doing. But I've been very fortunate, and I think water seeks its own level. You do gravitate towards things that you would get off on.

It's very liberating to be naked in front of a hundred people, but there's nothing sexual about lovemaking on a movie set.

I grew up in Texas, but that was 20 years ago. Last year, in Fort Worth, they had hail the size of softballs. We're seeing more and more powerful storms, of all types, almost on a biblical level.

When you start out as a filmmaker, you do parodies, because you can't really compete on a studio level.

Growing up in Texas and Oklahoma, Ben Johnson was more famous than John Wayne to some of us. I knew him. I worked with him on a low budget film years ago, and we'd sit around at night while waiting for a shot.

I came out to Hollywood when I was just 18, and my dad, he was really into Hollywood and theater and art, and I guess growing up, he exposed me to a lot of culture, and I just started making Super-8 films in high school and decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.

I don't care how much hardware you throw at an audience. If they are not emotionally invested in the thing, it's zero. I can name a slew of films, but I have no ax to grind. I understand the commerce of Hollywood probably better than anyone.

I got to direct a human interest sports drama - to this day, one of my proudest achievements in my career and a source of undying pride.

I think I got an Instamatic camera when I was 8 years old, and ever since then, I've liked to record things. I don't know why. Maybe it's just to kind of try to leave some kind of record behind.

I've had a career that is kind of under the radar, but it sure is varied, and I've been so blessed to be able to get paid to do something I love to do.

I've had a life where things have worked out for me beyond my wildest dreams, and my brother's had just the opposite.

In our game, it's your vanity that keeps you in shape. I've got a little gym set up, and I ride a single-speed bike up the hills behind my house. Lately I've been kind of a slacker. Usually it's a film role that makes me start getting in shape. Between roles, I try to do a little maintenance, but I'm not a workout fanatic at all.

It was so weird that I would end up directing 'The Greatest Game Ever Played,' because, y'know, I'm not a big golfer myself. But I grew up around the game. My mom and dad kind of built their dream house off the 11th fairway of Shady Oaks Country Club in Fort Worth.

It's easy to get jaded. It's easy to get lazy. It's easy to get too self-centric, like, 'Why me? What about my needs?' It has nothing to do with that. But you see, you are the thing you are selling whether you are a director or an actor in this business. It's very tough. The town doesn't realize that its greatest resource is its people.

My father always read obituaries to me out loud, not because he was maudlin or morbid, but because they were mini biographies.

My first film was a movie shot in 1974. I was 18 on that movie set. It was called 'Big Bad Mama.' I turned 19 on the next movie I worked on, which was a black 'Blazing Saddles.' I worked in the art department. It was called 'Darktown Strutters.'

Since I was a small boy, I was always around the game. I don't play golf much myself, but I love watching it. My father has played golf all his life.

There's something about being at the tournaments that you don't really get on TV, although golf is a great sport to watch on television.

What's been nice is that I've been able to direct from a very idealistic place. I've never had to make my living as a director, which gave me a chance to choose material I feel passionate about. The directing allows me to not have to grab any acting role that comes along. I can pick and choose a little bit.

Through readiness and discipline we are the masters of our fate.

When you start out as a filmmaker you do parodies because you cant really compete on a studio level.

We really wake up every day trying to build businesses. That is the goal of private equity. It's a misnomer out there that private equity profits by shrinking companies. In fact, it's just the opposite. Private equity creates value by growing great companies.

There are cases when it takes 50 or 100 years for fundamental science to achieve results.

I think it's fascinating that there's a whole holiday dedicated to things that we fear and that's so interesting about the nature of humanity.

There's such a huge link with fashion, with front covers of magazines and selling products, but that's not what you go into the job for, and yet you're persuaded that's what you have to do to create the opportunities for yourself.

It is said that blood is thicker than water. It is what joins us binds us curses us.

I had a magic kit. I never really followed through on it, but I had my phase of wanting to do it, sure.

Man can never expect to start from scratch; he must start from ready-made things, like even his own mother and father.

It's a privilege to act, and you have to protect and cherish it.

Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody.

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.

As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs.

I don't think you'll understand the true repercussions of what the 500 does for you until years down the road.

Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.

Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.

Any titles, money, or privilege you inherit are actually hindrances. They delude you into believing you are owed respect.

Constantly theres a credibility issue youre judged on how you look. If you look good people assume you arent credible. Its a battle youll always fight if youre on TV and a female.

When you worked in a studio it was the studio system that you kind of missed because it was a big, big family. I mean MGM had 5,000 people working a day there. You miss it.

The idea of being a novelist is really romantic, but it's kind of the same as being president of the United States - it's not gonna happen.

The true exercise of freedom is - cannily and wisely and with grace - to move inside what space confines - and not seek to know what lies beyond and cannot be touched or tasted.

America is a beacon of hope for the world. And yet we are in so much trouble.