As a boy I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure that I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed.

I've been doing Tai Chi on and off for 20 years. The fundamentals of all martial arts are the same.

Peter Ustinov was the first really positive influence in my career. He was real and he bore witness to it. The things he said to you, he lived them.

A lot of people only see me as villains.

My star was kind of fading towards the end of the '60s and suddenly I got this call from Fellini, who just appeared to kind of love me!

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.

It wasn't until I saw James Dean that I began to think that maybe I could actually do this. Movies didn't have to be just this fantasy with this impossibly handsome guy.

All actors are incredibly insecure.

With Fellini, the fear dropped out of my work because it was such a happy experience... hanging out with Fellini, having pasta on the set with Fellini, and going out with Fellini!

A lot of young directors, they're not confident; they're not open to the emotional level of the scene.

From the very first movie I ever made to the current time, there have been times between action and cut when I've sensed some kind of new dimension that I haven't been familiar with before.

Like tiny gods, all that we say and do holds a power so great that any one of us in any given moment can be responsible for the birth of a new civilization or the collapse of our own.

Look, when I’m here, I don’t have to think. I don’t have to worry. I don’t even have to be me if I don’t want to. That came out wrong. I don’t have to be the me I have to be all day.

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last.

Kubrick is a machine, a mutant, a Martian. He has no human feeling whatsoever. But it's great when the machine films other machines, as in 2001.

Nothing worse than Kurds in your milk. General, make sure i never see another Kurd again.

Your timing is amazing," Kami told him. "By which I mean, I am amazed by it.

A smile from an attractive woman at a bar very rarely ends up in any sort of sexual encounter. But a man is a fool not to push the suggestion as far as it will go, and he's that man.

We are the shadow cast by real people. And that shadow changes shape as the news cycle changes shape, so you always have fresh dirt to dig in.

I was born in a small clapboard house on an island, but I also have certain privileges that I didn't have when I was on the island. So that dichotomy again is actually really crucial.