Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal.

Well I sure had been looking for a comedy for years without any success.

I'm very wary of news on television.

Partly because the town is just finicky, there are strange Catch 22 clauses in the consciousness of this community and one of them was that you, I found out, you can't do a comedy unless you've just done a comedy.

If you think that by threatening me you can get me to do what you want... well, that's where you're right. But - and I am only saying this because I care - there's a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.

It's the first time that I've ever had an art show based on a film, but it's a photography collage.

My perception is that I've never done anything but work really hard.

I have two children and they're young yet but all of the children that I know really inspire me.

Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things.

I sang the songs in 'The Doors'.

Warner Bros offered me the next Batman, and the only reason that I didn't do it was because of The Saint.

Jim Thompson understood something about the serial killer before the psychology caught up to it, which is that they are detached to it and they do want to get caught.

I respect people who can do both careers, like Will Smith and a couple of other people who have done it, but I just don't know when they sleep.

If you look up the definition of news in the dictionary, it isn't what you watch on TV.

Postman is a media analyst and his theory is that television doesn't influence our culture, but that it is our culture and the presidency and anything that relies on television.

That's the joy of art - it should be dangerous and challenging but it's just art - it's safe.

The first play I saw was a Samuel Beckett play which was great.

Acting is very immediate.

Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal.

The Secret Service is a strange group. They don't really have a leader. It's not set up like a military. Each one is supposed to be able to act like a leader when something comes up.

News is something that happens that matters to you, which is not most of what we watch on television.

A lot of old guys in movies are like cowboys - they talk like cowboys and they dress like cowboys.

Being creative and making money in the theater is very challenging.

Daryl Hannah likes to goof around with fashion, but she does have pretty impeccable taste.

Hollywood's like a warehouse. It's just a place that you go. What's interesting in the warehouse has to do with the creative people.

I am not an American; I am the American.

I can safely say that no one who has ever won an Oscar didn't want to win an Oscar.

I don't think of my life as a cliche, but I'm a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name - I mean, who's named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?

I don't watch television, but I saw 'The Office' by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We'd do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I'm sitting there watching hours of it.

I just don't think I've ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity.

I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered.

I think death is just a transition to another state of consciousness.

I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I've played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters.

I'm a character actor, but I look like a leading man.

I'm going to put a museum on my ranch and people keep saying, 'That's a huge idea.' Yeah, it's big, but not bigger than the average big movie. A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything. That's maybe a big gallery's total sales for a given year.

I've been very fortunate and met the guys that have become, basically, philosophers and have a kind of sensibility about life that's very precious.

It's a really weird thing, modern divorce. I found out I was getting divorced on television. That was kind of weird.

It's fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren't actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n' roll. I've listened to 'Ziggy Stardust' as much as any rock n' roll fan - I don't really know what it's about, but it sure is fun to think about David Bowie as this mad creation.

It's the persona that makes you a leading actor. A leading actor has something extra that's fun to watch. But it isn't usually about acting.

Life is precious, and when someone dies it's an opportunity to realise how precious it is. My brother drowned when I was 17. He was 15. I think I grew from that. My father didn't. It really crushed him.

Mark Twain created a new type of literature and not a lot of people can say that. Not a lot of people can say they're absolutely original and completely self-made.

Mark Twain had a way of telling stories that shifts your consciousness away from labels.

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is.

Most films made about the future acquiesce toward death, and I don't want to be told how to define my future.

My children have absolutely no interest in my fame. They're very sophisticated, and they have a spiritual perspective on material things because we go to church.

My father was raised in the mountains of New Mexico, and he picked cotton for a dollar a day. He was working for the family from the time he was 7.

One out of 100 citizens of the U.S. is going to prison, and it's not that the system is making criminals, it's that it's making criminals better criminals. We're breeding them like rats and it has to change.

There was no one around called 'Val' when I was young, so I wanted to be John or Bill. Now I like it.

There was such a relationship between the buffalo and the American Indian - the Indians would eat them, live inside their pelts, use every part of the body. There was almost no separation between the people and the animals.