“What a lot of people dont realize about gangs, in my opinion, is that a gang is not there to attack you. Eighty percent of the people in a gang are there to stop anyone from attacking them. You join a gang for protection, not to go out and hit someone.”

I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got.

Obsession is a young man’s game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.

I don’t see myself as anything. I just wander around getting on with my life.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

There was a certain moment. I was about 61 – two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying – “I don’t wanna do it. The part’s too small.” And he sent it back to me, he said, “You shouldn’t read the lover. You should read the father.

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

I never look back at all. All of my sentiment and emotion goes into my family. I’m an extremely family oriented person and I have a very, very happy family life. That doesn’t just include blood relations. I have friends who are close to me.

I think life has got to develop as you get older, and I don’t want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life.

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I’m my own most vicious critic. So I’m always trying to do it better.

It’s a lesson in life – don’t look back, you’ll trip over.

My father was a fish market porter. So I grew up on fish, because he used to steal one a day, I grew up on the very best fish that money could buy, ’cause he only stole the good stuff.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can’t deal with a woman of their own age.

It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.

Focus on impact, not approval. If you believe you can change the world, which I hope you do, do what you believe is right and expect resistance and expect attackers. Keep calm and carry on!

The best way to counter-attack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you.

President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success and I will change that.

The only true solution would be a convention under which all the governments would bind themselves to defend collectively any country that was attacked.

Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.

If we are attacked we can only defend ourselves with guns not with butter.

Men who are fighting themselves will always see love as an attack.

Wine is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young.