The Navy has changed a great deal. Not that the officers of my day were bad, because I served under a lot of good officers, believe me. But there were a few bad ones, too.

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.

By voluntarily adopting a dominated body posture you display the fact that you have accepted to be inferior.

You can live a lifetime and at the end of it know more about other people than you know about yourself.

Never impose your language on people you wish to reach.

You don't burn out from going too fast. You burn out from going too slow and getting bored.

You might be a redneck if a full-grown ostrich has fewer feathers than your cowboy hat.

Surrounded by stories surreal and sublime, I fell in Love in the Library once upon a time.

Teachers don't work in the summer, and photographers don't shoot in in the middle of the day.

Some feelings are stronger than fear: love, longing, desire.

At the top of the cycle you write policies for everybody, no matter how bad, and at the bottom you cancel everybody, no matter how good. It's a manic-depressive cycle.