When you are making the one you are doing, you think it is the greatest film going. And then you do another one and it is a great film.

If you're older you want to tell stories about the pool of human life and living and to communicate, not only to your age group but to do an age group that can begin to understand, that has enough experience of life far beyond the taste of life.

I never felt comfortable in real life very well. It's always been an awkward kind of thing for me and so when I hit the stage I just sensed freedom. I sensed here's a place that I can have all the experiences of life and not feel uncomfortable about it.

We truly have an ancient part of the brain that was about survival when we were prey but we seem to have gone past prey. We eat everything and nothing eats us.

Now, there is always a tremendous fear of science and progressing forward into areas of the unknown and it is a valid fear. Some of the genetic alterations of food are a little edgy.

If you feel you have a film that's valid, you stick your ass on the line.

You have to struggle a bit, hustle a little, and be willing to go bankrupt. Once you're willing to do that, everything opens up and you get the freedom. My joke is that next year, I'll make the first film that costs zero dollars.

When you are making the one you are doing, you think it is the greatest film going. And then you do another one and it is a great film.

About the only thing that'll stay with you that you can trust all your life is your breath. Your breath will be there at the very last, because when it stops, you will stop.

Acting is a bit of a substitute for life.

Acting is always therapeutic.

Action films have a certain illogicalness to them. They're what we call, when we're working, 'exaggerated realism.'

Actors are really working with bodies, with their minds, and with their emotions. Feelings, basically. That's what movies are about, going from one feeling to another.

After Civil Rights, it was very awkward for whites and blacks. We didn't know how to talk to each other.

Ageing's a difficult thing, moving closer to death, but it's okay. I've had a good time living, so I'm gonna have a good time dying.

All American males are failed athletes, and it was big time even if it was Little League. It meant a lot to you.

American society is still puritanical.

Americans aren't good at accents, but the English are because their accents change. You go five or six blocks and the accent is different, so they are used to hearing different pitches. In America, you gotta travel maybe 10 states before you can really hear a difference.

Asking for forgiveness is just one of the most painful kind of experiences.

Birth is violent, and out of that violence is our only chance of rebirth.

Early on I decided that I was going to lie to the press. The best approach to talking about my personal life was to lie.

Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.

Everyone chases a bit of what they say life is about: money, desire... But when you stop chasing, you realise life is a rhythm and it's very peaceful, very quiet. You see, it's quite a miracle.

Hollywood is all made up, anyway. Especially the stories and angles that people want to pin on you.

How do I relax? Meditate, I guess. I quit golf. You twist your back and get all cranked up.

I accept the dying process. I would just like to be as healthy as I possibly can at each step and phase along the way.

I am a good sewer. My mother taught me how to sew.

I can't ad-lib, or not for long.

I can't get any satiation. My brain is wired in such a way that I - in my research, I probably have a lack of D1 and D2 receptor sites. These are dopamine receptor sites, and satiation is a process that involves a cascade.

I have a high degree of sensitivity, always have. I was very shy as a child. I don't know why that was.

I have a lot of scars, man. My mother said that a man is not a man unless he has a scar on his face. And what she meant by a scar was some kind of battle that you had to go through, whether it was psychological or physical. To her, a scar was actually beautiful and not something that marred you.

I like working with writer-directors because you can solve problems right there.

I never felt comfortable in real life very well. It's always been an awkward kind of thing for me and so when I hit the stage I just sensed freedom. I sensed, 'Here's a place that I can have all the experiences of life and not feel uncomfortable about it.'

I never fought much. It just wasn't my thing. I suppose I could, but I've never got into fights. Not a real one.

I'd like to do one European film a year.

I'm glad I never went to war.

I'm pretty much of a physical actor.

I've been called 'the voice actor.'

I've been in movies where the movie doesn't come together but the role comes together, or the movie comes together but the role doesn't come together or something like that. Something misses. It's very difficult to make it hit on all cylinders - it's just very rare.

I've made a lot of mistakes and I don't regret any of them. Sometimes that's the only way you learn.

I've never been all that comfortable in real life.

If I'm going to have to deal, as I get older, with arthritic pain, I don't want to get into opiates.

If I'm not a successful human being, who I am?

If you get yourself in a hole, you dig yourself out.

If you had a cancer on your skin and had it burned it off, you'd wash it and clean it every day.

In 'Over the Hedge,' I played a bear, and I spent all this time listening to the sounds they make when they fight and mate, when they're angry or happy.

In America, the old are neglected.

In the sixties, you're still thinking you could do something about this slow disintegration of the body.

It's easier to go somewhere if you've been there before.