There was certainly less profanity in the Godfather than in the Sopranos. There was a kind of respect. It's not that I totally agreed with it, but it was a great piece of art.

My mother was the total influence. My father was what we call a nomadic person; he was a wanderer.

The choreographer for the Milton Berle show wanted me to audition. I walked away from that.

My entire family were Democrats all our lives. But because how furious I was about the previous administration, I turned in my card to become a Republican. I did not want to be known as a Democrat under that person's regime.

I don't know anyone who curses the way they do on the Sopranos. Not in an Italian household. I never said the word hell in front of my mother.

Death can't be so bad if mom went through it. It makes it easier for the child to follow.

People have an image of Italians. When I go somewhere in the world, I don't care where it is, when they look at me it's not about my intelligence. It's who can I beat up.

I'm a traditionalist. I have certain values I live by.

You don't have to be worried about labeling me.

I have sons, and they have never said the word hell in front of me or my wife. That's the truth.

An album is such a personal thing. It's something I always wanted to do. It's me doing me, singing as me.

If I stunk for some reason, you can always blame it on the character.

There was certainly less profanity in the Godfather than in the Sopranos. There was a kind of respect. It's not that I totally agreed with it, but it was a great piece of art.

At some point in my life, before I was gone, I wanted to make an album, even if it was for no reason other than posterity.

I fell in love with the most beautiful girl in the Bronx.

I need distractions. Good distractions, not bad ones. A good distraction for me is a great play.

I used to make up stories about my father. I would go to the movies and look for a character who looked like my father.

I was 40 when I did my first movie.

I was just so blatantly shy throughout my life.

If I didn't start singing in the cabarets and on my albums, I could have never even tried something like 'Capone.'

Look, people have an image of Italians. When I go somewhere in the world, I don't care where it is, when they look at me it's not about my intelligence. It's who can I beat up.

My father never saw me play ball, and I was an outstanding ballplayer. I missed all that adoration.

My father was a good man, but he was a con man. He was a wanderer, nomadic.

My father was never around. It was almost as if he didn't exist. I would tell my friends he was in Cleveland, on business. Sometimes, every six months or so, he would come by for dinner.

People call me an instinctive actor. I used to consider that an insult early on, only because I had never studied. Now... I love it.

We talk about Hollywood being pro-labor, yet about 70% of our industry has been farmed out to Canada, meaning we are losing jobs like crazy. Where's organized labor asking how we can allow such a thing to happen?

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

The principal rule of art is to please and to move. All the other rules were created to achieve this first one.

I grew up with art from the innocent age of ten - with art, but with no sense of identity.

One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.

The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.

My art became very public.

Riding a race bike is an art - a thing that you do because you feel something inside.

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

We have often been attracted to the story of the other, the outcast. And he and I just loved working together, so it just kept happening, and our relationship is completely bound up with our work. We enjoy each other's art.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

At the University of Maryland, my first year I started off planning to major in art because I was interested in theatre design, stage design or television design.

Art is an expression of who you are. Parts that I play are my sculptures.

There has always been quite a strong black and white art tradition in Australia, with quite a large contingent of cartoonists, given the size of the population.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

What motivates me in art is the ugly and beautiful nature of the truth. It has to be truthful and honest, even if it is ugly and grotesque.

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.