When I direct I try to keep it a unique design of my own. Naturally you're influenced.

My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap.

Life's too short to deal with other people's insecurities.

No expectations. Ask nothing, expect nothing and accept everything, and life is very well.

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

I don't believe in nepotism. I don't much like the idea of parents who interfere.

Relish everything that's inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.

The whole point of courage, to overcome your fear. That's the interesting thing, when courage bleeds through the fear.

I always liked to take the plunge, you know, I'd jump in at the deep end and hope that I'd find land somehow, or hope I'd float or survive. That's more or less the way I've gone through my life.

You're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling?

The thing I regret the most is that I cannot help everyone who really needs it.

A play is fiction - and fiction is fact distilled into truth.

Insanity makes the rivers flow.

That's like comparing apples with hermaphroditic ground sloths.

One wants to think that - and this is really a stupid thought - that through your art or whatever you do as an actor you can actually affect someone else's lives and thoughts or whatever.

Being poor is like being a child. Being rich is like being an adult: you get to do whatever you want. Everyone is nice when they have to be; rich people are nice when they feel like it.

I created a flag from the sport's dignity. I oversee the name of my family with affection, steady nerves and blood.

Good-humor makes all things tolerable

I used to want to be tall, and then I thought, 'If I were tall, then people would say I was pretty and not cute.' And then I realized that there are worse things than being called cute.

I never questioned Barack Obama's patriotism.