I wouldn't trade those 10 years for anything. The Navy taught me a lot of things. It molded me as a man, and I made a lot of wonderful friends.

You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain.

Everything I do has a moral to it.

I'm what you call a Depression sailor.

It was my mom who told me, "Ernie, if you make even one person happy with your smile or a funny thing you did every day, you'll have accomplished a great deal." And that's all I've ever tried to do.

I don't chart out the life histories of the people I play. If I did, I'd be in trouble. I work with my heart and my head, and naturally emotions follow.

Writers used to make such wonderful pictures without all that swearing, all that cursing. And now it seems that you can't say three words without cursing. And I don't think that's right.

If John Wayne were alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave!

Every time I step in front of a camera I feel young again. I really do. It keeps your mind active and it keeps you going.

It's not your word that matters, it's who you give it too.

Gary Cooper - the greatest listener in the world! And he used to answer in kind, which is wonderful because you don't see that anymore. People don't listen. They really don't.

There is only one funda to know life, and no one knows it.

Don’t set your sights low, just because someone else has a limited view of life’s possibilities. One person's comfort zone may be another person's cage.

Writing the middle of a novel is a lot like driving through Texas. You think it's never going to end, and the scenery looks the same.

That’s the problem with you young people, always thinking everything comes with a price. An act of kindness is just that, nothing more.

I have much to learn of the Indian, nothing of the missionary.

Sometimes I'll leave the house and go to a delicatessen down the street from me - it's been there a million years - just because I can look at people.

I spend so much time with my parents. My mom and I were joined at the hip for five years. There was not one moment when I wasn't with her.

I'm the world 'Guinness Book of Records' holder of 1,749 hugs in one hour. My arms fell off.

Woe to the man who tries to stretch the imagination of man He shall be mocked he shall be scourged by the blinkered guardians of morality.

I'm not an idealist anymore, I'm a bitter realist.