In the past 10 years, I've looked at life as this Pollock stuff. And now I'm almost in the post Pollock phase.

It's hard to see a film that's been made from a book that you really loved because it's such a different experience.

I chose films made by people I wanted to work with, about subject matter I thought was intriguing.

I have a tight family group that's really important to me. I don't want to work all the time.

There's always a reaction based on fear. People assume if you're criticizing a decision to go to war, then you're saying something against the soldiers-which is not the case.

A lot of films come out before they're finished.

You can't betray yourself too often, or you become somebody else.

When I decided to direct, never having done that before, is something I'm very proud of.

I am not one of these guys who works job after job after job.

In the past 10 years, I've looked at life as this Pollock stuff. And now I'm almost in the post Pollock phase.

I've always wanted to work with Paul Newman. I had a couple opportunities in the past, and I didn't take advantage of it, so it was really fun to be working with him.

I like to act with people that know what they're doing.

Seeing what happens when you rip yourself open is what your job is all about.

You can mostly forget ethnic or religious differences. The competition for a bigger share of the oil proceeds is behind much of the fighting.

You get three hours' sleep and then you start all over again. Relentless. Pre-production was almost harder than filming. I was all over the city every day. It was really exhausting.

Pollock said several times that he couldn't separate himself from his art. Not knowing much about modern art when I began to read about him, I was much more his persona - his struggles as a human being - that was interesting to me.

I listen to National Public Radio, which, to me at least, presents the most rounded view of things.

I made career decisions that came from the part of me who wanted to shun the limelight.

You look at a guy like Lance Armstrong, and you have to be inspired. I sat next to Kirk Douglas the other day, and he's inspiring for fighting through his stroke.

I love this country very much, and I'm proud to live here, but I think our current administration is extreme. These are not merely conservative people, these are extreme right-wing people.

When Bush first got elected, the very first time there was talk of going to war with Iraq, the mainstream media gave his position total credibility. I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now.

If I started worrying about how my constituents are going to react to every move I make, I wouldn't be able to do my job here. I'll do what I think is right and explain it later.

If I'm daring at all, I guess it would be emotionally. I try to keep things interesting for myself and to do things that challenge me.

I'm not an activist per se, but I have strong feelings about things. People can jump on celebrities for being ill-informed or naive, but I've got a right to say what I believe.

One of the first things I learned about acting was, the only person you compete against is yourself.

For The Truman Show, I worked for a few weeks, do my gig, then I was done.

I feel like my place in this industry is still progressing.

I had some really dear friends who died from AIDS-one in particular. His family wasn't around and he didn't have many friends. I spent a lot of time with him in his later days.

I think most people that are looked upon as doing something daring don't necessarily think of it that way-they do what they have to do.

I was concerned about filling my life up with something important to me. To me, it was just necessary.

You cant betray yourself too often or you become somebody else.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Sometimes life's so much cooler when you just don't know any better and all the painful lessons have not hammered your head open yet.

My life is so full of surprises, nothing surprises me any more.