“Study people’s success stories hard. Study their failures even harder.”

I watch a lot of news, and I watch musical shows because I think the music of the young people is really their news reports. They let you know how their country is going through their eyes, and about their experiences in the everyday shock of growing up.

I don’t fall into the physical manifestation of a man of letters. So I guess people assume the scripts are delivered to me under the door.

The way to be successful in Hollywood is to be as obnoxious as the next guy.

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can’t change. After I die, I’ll probably come back as a paintbrush.

We do two things in life: We race the clock and everything is a struggle. One way or not, it’s a metaphorical battle all of the time.

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Now if you know what you’re worth. Then go out and get what you’re worth.

I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.

I realized, the older I get, the more difficult life becomes. It’s not easier, it’s more difficult.

It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful.

Everybody has anger or regret in them one way or another. They all try different things to get it out. Some people go to psychiatrists. Some paint pictures. Some people talk it out.

I’m perceived to be this solitary character, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Movies are the work of a collective conscious. It takes 500-800 people on a movie to complete a vision.

I was an ambitious child and I tended to be scatterbrained. If I was at school and saw a bird outside the window I wanted to follow it. I was adventurous.

I thought I had reached a point in life where everything would be smooth. But it is not. It just gets more jagged and pitted and filled with turns that take you into the dark recesses of your mind. It never seems to get easy.

Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.

The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed – socialism doesn’t work.

You fail only if you stop writing.

It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.

What then remains, but well our power to use, And keep good-humor still whate’er we lose? And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.

Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted. Every evening they disappear. Most parents never imagine how hard they try to please us, and how miserable they feel when they think they have failed.

Don’t be defined by your failures, be refined by them.

Success is outliving your failures.

Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.