My work is to reach people with ideas, hopes, dreams, encouragement, insight, and revelation. That's what an actor wants to do.

I figure I basically am a ghost. I think we all are.

Sometimes it was tough doing take after take upside down! I did a lot of that sort of thing.

At a certain point he was very popular, from THE RAVEN. He was never fully appreciated, never made the money, and you know he was looked upon with admiration by some people, but also as an oddball. But that was his point.

One of the great things about being recognized is that you receive this feedback from people. It is easy to see how sincere people are. It's nothing fake or jive. They're giving sincere appreciation. And it's not that easy to express.

Poe was a student of many things, and among those things he read and referred to in his work was the Bible.

The feedback that I get from my association with Gomez is heartwarming. It is very difficult for me to take anything but a positive view of the Gomez phenomenon.

I get into certain yoga positions at times, when I'm working out and for exercises. I use a little of it in some of my meditation, but I chant now and that sort of replaced it.

I think people really want to be happy.

The themes Poe used were universal and timeless. As long as the English language exists at all, we will be able to appreciate what he did. It will not age! It will not become dated!

It is important to me that what Poe has to say gets across to people. I want to give people the feeling that I get from all this. I think that we are succeeding. The feedback is very warm.

We are running ourselves into a damaged earth. But I am optimistic. I believe that we can change; we must change. As a human race, we are very young and quite primitive. The sooner we learn the greatness of humanity the better off we will all be.

People are transported to that space that Poe wanted to make available to us.

My background is basically scientific math. My Dad was a physicist, so I have it in my blood somewhere. Scientific method is very important to me. I think anything that contradicts it is probably not true.

I got things like the lotus position long before anybody else did, or at least in the mainstream. But I had fun. I guess my legs are pretty flexible, so I used to get a kick out of doing things like that. I would get into a full lotus with my legs and then roll around.

I guess one of the reasons I'm doing the Poe piece is that I think Poe demonstrates that no matter how difficult things are, if you continue to move forward in life, you can eventually become victorious, even if it's later in life.

United Artists wanted to do records with me. I had no idea, what a rare thing that was... to make an album. And they put a guy with me working on songs, and I got busy with films. I just kind of let it slide. Isn't that amazing?

One life is worth the universe. Poe was able to go right into the very depth of life and to demonstrate this.

There was one where Gomez was on a Trapeze hanging by the legs upside down. I remember how much the backs of my knees would hurt until I got used to it. It was hard.

There are things so deep and complex that only intuition can reach it in our stage of development as human beings. And to Poe... well, a great logician could be an enemy to him, what he called conventional world reason.

I think Poe had a mission to tell us what it's all about. To answer some of the great questions of life.

My work is to reach people with ideas, hopes, dreams, encouragement, insight, and revelation. That's what an actor wants to do.

Sometimes when I see a performance that really takes me, I struggle. How can I express this to this person, I want this person to know how I felt. I want to get this across, and it's not very easy.

I love to play for audiences that are simply made of people rather than so-called special people.

People are smarter than you might think.

There are things so deep and complex that only intuition can reach it in our stage of development as human beings.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.