With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.

Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age.

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.

Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.

I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.

Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships.

Let how you live your life stand for something, no matter how small and incidental it may seem.

Privacy above all else. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.

Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.

Reading is not optional.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.

You ever tasted a smell? It's a very strange feeling. I've done it quite a few times and it still freaks me out.

I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.

There are words which cut like steel.

I'm trying to read a book on how to relax, but I keep falling asleep.

I want to thank my daughter, who told me, 'If you don't win, Dad, you're still good,' ... who taught me how to act.

I've occasionally been asked to talk on Israel-Palestine. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it elicits hysteria in the community.

I love the idea of messing around with different mediums.