I think being a movie star is about whether an audience can watch you and care about you.

I like to touch things. In my house I have a lot of velvet drapes and thick, lush couches.

Why am I the way I am? Well, I used to be different.

If someone messes with me, I'm going to mess with them.

It was dog food. Beef livers with onions in a can. You open it up and it looks like vomit.

Although I get so much fan mail from Great Britain, tell me, am I more famous there than Michael Madsen?

I weighed 190 when I got to boot camp, I came out at 178. I ate only the beans and tomato sauce.

I didn't come to Hollywood to drink or get high, and I don't want to be considered a cool actor - I want to be a great actor.

I know that 20 years from now if anyone asks me one question, it will be, 'What was it like to be in Saving Private Ryan?

I'm afraid of the dark. I'm not kidding.

Well you know for me, the action is the juice.

The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination.

Nothing risqué

I've taken it from feminist friends, and I've taken it from lefty friends too. But that reassures me. If the right is attacking us and the left is attacking us, that's exactly where we want to be.

Nothing wrong with making money.

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.

Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal – less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.

I love doing readings. I could really give a crap about reviews. It's kind of about the readers.

People fall in love for mysterious reasons.

All of the things I've directed, I'm really emotionally close to. That's why I choose to direct them and spend years on them.

What's lightly hid is deepest understood.