When you're making pictures out of heartfelt passion, it hurts when someone calls them a calculated business move.

There's nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life.

I've always tried to kind of stretch my wings as an actor and do things that are different.

It's difficult for me to meet women because my crowd is much older. I know that for some of the young women I do meet, a relationship with me can be envisioned as a benefit to their career.

For an actor, it's great fun to play one of these hungry white sharks. Audiences love to hate them.

I'm impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work.

Actresses have more fear of being disliked. I, on the other hand, revel in it.

The one thing that men and women have in common - they both like the company of men.

A lot of actors get concerned about their own image, even going so far as to rewrite a movie to best serve that image. All I want to do is be in good movies.

When you're making pictures out of heartfelt passion, it hurts when someone calls them a calculated business move.

Everything's so repressive now - it's the No generation. You can't do anything, you can't eat anything, you have to abstain.

I don't know about Brad Pitt leaving that beautiful woman to go hold orphans for Angelina. I mean how long is that going to last?

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' which my father had tried to get made for six, seven years, and I for four, was turned down by every studio. Every studio in the world had passed on it.

'Wall Street' was a very important movie for me in terms of my career. I won an Oscar, and then the film 'Fatal Attraction' came right after it.

Actors, I have to say, most of the time, they elevate things; they don't screw things up most of the time.

Cancer didn't bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.

Cancer has shown me what family is. It showed me a love that I never knew really existed.

Capitalism is part of our system, but it's not for the faint of heart.

Chemotherapy takes its toll; the more you keep doing it, you lose your energy, and it gets more difficult to swallow.

Control is what gives you privacy.

Directing talent is very nebulous. You know, it's not in front of you like an actor's performance.

Directors have so much else to do besides tell actors what to do. There are so many issues and problems.

Do you know what absolute happiness is? For me, it is to wake up my kids in the morning - these little pieces of innocence - to wake them and find they're so happy to see me! It is unequivocal love, no question about it.

During my first marriage, my career was the most important thing in my life.

Early on, someone had told me, 'You know, the camera can always tell when you're lying.' And, Jesus, that intimidated me. 'The camera can always tell? How am I going to do this?' Until one day I thought, 'Wait a minute, acting is lying. Acting is all about lying.'

Every empire eventually falls.

For a long time, I can't say I was one who really enjoyed acting. I was always censoring it, or editing it, or analyzing it, rather than just going with it.

I believe there is a spirit within us, which we nurture based upon our efforts and what we bring to the world. But it doesn't come from the outside; it comes from the inside.

I come from a tough stock.

I do think of myself as a bit of a loner, a bit of an independent. I'm one of those people who, when they're sick, like to curl up and remove myself. I don't like a lot of people around. There is nothing you can do to help.

I don't ever do those kind of epic, huge, green-screen movies.

I don't know if likeable, pleasant characters have enough conflict for me to want to do them. I admire those people, but I've never been that kind of screen presence who can do nothing. I need to do something.

I don't smile a lot in my pictures. I'm always so... grim.

I don't think tongue cancer is the best cancer for an actor.

I don't wish ill will on anybody.

I enjoy provocative things that are questionable.

I grew up on the East Coast and was going to go to an Ivy League School, but at the last minute I decided to be a hippy. It was the protest movements on the war, peace movements were going on at our university. It was a fantastic time.

I guess there are some women who like older men, but it's a smaller group.

I have hardly ever worked with the same director twice. But when you have worked with a director before, you understand his behavior.

I have nothing against her, and in fact I'm very fond of my first wife. But we should have ended that marriage eight or 10 years earlier.

I have some idea of the pressure of finding your own identity with a famous father.

I haven't played a lot of nice guys.

I love kids, and I love having had this second chance to have a family.

I met Michael Milken for the first time with Oliver Stone at the Drexel Burnham offices in Los Angeles.

I never really look at my movies.

I tell my kids they are going to live to over 100.

I think sometimes in relationships, ladies like having a man who takes care of them, nurtures them. If you can't find it in a man your own age, you find it in somebody who is older.

I thought I could never be the actor Dad was, so I avoided it for a while.

I try not to dwell too much on a bad marriage.