It is scary for an actor when you get hired as a lead. No matter what the plot is, it is your job to do something interesting enough to make them want to get inside the lead character's head.

Do you like my suit? I think this is an amazing suit, don't you think?

I guess after Dances With Wolves they probably tried some derivative westerns, and if they didn't work, they said the western is dead and moved on to something else.

Which to this day is a source of enormous guilt, because I left with three classes to go in the business school to sign a contract with 20th Century Fox.

I had a strong, really good upbringing, not puritanical.

If you buy an expensive thing and you never use it, I don't think there's a point to it.

Son, never throw a punch at a redwood.

It's not that conservatives don't care. We do. We just have different answers than liberals do. It's a difference of the mind, not of the heart.

I live a pretty simple life.

To me, the excitement is in ordering a fine shotgun, going through the process that everybody who has bought one has gone through for 100 years. You order it, you make a significant down payment, and then you wait three or four years for the gun to be custom-made for you.

Having had that experience... I think, what modern culture wants to see is the relationship with the woman. I don't think you can tell a story on film nowadays where the woman simply is there for the man when he decides to settle down.

I praise CBS for taking a risk, which is always the price you pay for opportunity. This is not standard movie of the week storytelling. I think movies of the week have fallen into a niche and that isn't my niche.

And besides, because of all she has accomplished, Barbara Jordan has always been a hero of mine.

I feel the other element of a western is the land, which is very important in this movie. I mean the land is another character in the piece, actually.

I've never reacted well to other people telling me what to do.

I don't feel the obligation to have a big explosion in the first 20 seconds so the audience doesn't turn on another channel. We are trying to make something that looks like a feature film that was bought for television and I think we are succeeding.

Shooting clay targets is a very cleansing experience. It's very relaxing. It takes a lot of concentration. It's also very social, since you're usually shooting with friends. You can talk and forget about almost anything else that's on your mind.

I've learned by hanging out in Hollywood, where I disagree politically with most people, that most people's hearts are in the right place, and the only thing we have to argue about is the way to solve the problems.

I think a lot of Magnum was me.

You know, there's so much imitation and so much pandering in Hollywood.

I realized I really liked the screen. I knew it was a challenge, but I wasn't afraid of risk.

It is scary for an actor when you get hired as a lead. No matter what the plot is, it is your job to do something interesting enough to make them want to get inside the lead character's head.

But, you know there's a lot of westerns - not that they were bad - it's just that they can be remade because they're great stories that aren't indelible in an audience's mind when it comes to both the cast and the story.

You know I grew up watching the TV series The Rifleman.

There was a time I could have been mistaken for Burt Reynolds. I had a moustache and so did he. But he was the number one star in the world, so there wasn't really much confusion.

Hopefully you marry someone who you not only love, but who you like as well.

I don't think you should do something just to prove to an audience that you can do it, that's way out of your wheelhouse.

I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel.

I quit 'Magnum' to have a family. It took a long time to get off the train, but I try very hard to have balance, and this ranch has helped me do that.

I think of myself as an actor first, not a sex symbol. Do I think I'm sexy? No, that's someone else's judgment, and I honestly don't think you can try to be sexy and really succeed.

I think television has always been one to replicate when something's successful. I don't think there's quite as much innovation.

My first priority is time with my family.

People tracking your life and photographing you anywhere you go, that can make you crazy.

The Westerns I like aren't really comedies. I'm drawn to the scope of them and the land as a central character.

At my age, turning gray is kind of a blessing, where it softens all of the other horrible things it does to you, but it is what it is.

You don't do characters that are the same as you, otherwise why bother to act?

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.