My occupation has been a great deal with David Foster Wallace, and he didn't manage it, and he was very much looking for something that isn't totally selfish, and finding meaning. It's a struggle.

There just doesn't seem to be a market for something with aspiration anymore.

I don't want to peak too early. The worry is that you never know until it's all over whether you peaked at all - and then you're finished and it's too late.

The film business is absurd. Stars don't last very long. It's much more interesting to be a proper actor.

I never did anything about my stardom, it never meant anything to me.

I keep saying that backwards is all you can see. You can't see front. My wife says, "Stop, you're always in the past." She sees me sort of daydreaming.

I'm not religious. I love what Clive James said the other day. James is a brilliant writer, but he keeps on writing poems on stuff. And he said, "God doesn't have a leg to stand on."

This is something particular to actors, especially in plays, and in films, too - but in plays, it's like, don't get involved with anyone in the play.

My now-wife - we got together in '81, we married a few years after - she's been very good in the past about going in the theater with me to see actresses I had known. But then, she's not an actress.

It was still quite late when I got married, 30s, I don't know.

Life is an accumulation of what your Heart and mind has pondered most, a conclusion of all you wishes, dreams and desires.

Keep people in your life who truly love you, motivate you, and make you happy. If you know people who do none of these things, let them go.

People don't buy what you do

I thought there were too many songs about people's personal lives.

The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes.

Let your emotions come out. If your behavior is flat, your game will be flat, too.

Even if security from the cradle to the grave could eliminate [all] the risks of life, it would [still] be a dead hand on the creative spirit of the American people.

Nowadays people are born to find fault. When they look at Achilles, they see only his heel.

The best social program is a productive job for anyone who's willing to work.

Better not to exist than live basely.