Sometimes with people their work is the most important thing to them, and sometimes the work enables you to do other things that are more important to you. I probably am closer to that.

Acting is easy and fun. You earn a lot of money, and you bang out with girls. The profession is given tremendous significance within our society, but it's not really worthy of it.

I'd like to thank the academy and I'd like to thank my mother and I'd like to thank my mother again, because I forgot to thank her last year.

The script is the coloring book that you’re given, and your job is to figure out how to color it in. And also when and where to color outside the lines.

I lost interest in firearms because we had a dog that was scared to death of the sound of a rifle shot.

Working in theater, film or television are three different jobs for an actor, and I accept them as such.

Love is the one emotion actors allow themselves to believe.

I think also there's no question that Lincoln has been diluted down through history in some way, almost by becoming as iconic as he is, in a way he's become diluted.

I think that Barack Obama faces a level of divisiveness, and I don't mean on a national level in terms of the North and the South and the Civil War; I really mean just politically.

The first perk of theatre is the girls.

If I don't need the money, I don't work.

When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum.

I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces.

The emphasis is on meditation in Tantric Zen. The experience of meditation in formal practice, zazen, where you're sitting down and meditating and concentrating.

The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical."

Who told you that one paints with colors? One makes use of colors, but one paints with emotions.

Even though I've had the body of work I've had, and the success I've had, I do not rest on my laurels whatsoever.

I start thinking about the next movie before it's a success, so I can never have one moment of happiness or peace. I'm instantly thinking about the next one.

Life's not fair; why should I be?

The life which is not examined is not worth living.

Ain't but one kind of blues and that consists of a male and female that's in love.