“Reality doesn’t have any preconceived ideas. You’ve got to learn how to smoke the cigarette, not act smoking the cigarette.”

The clouds are lined with silver and the glass is half full (though the answers won’t be found at the bottom) Don’t sweat the small stuff

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet.

I don’t have to explain anything to anybody.

An hour or two of learning from the masters is usually enough to recharge my artistic batteries.

Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.

If I can keep this up and nothing interferes with my progress, one of these days I might be able to contribute something to the world.

You are who you are meant to be. Dance as if no one’s watching. Love as if it’s all you know. Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

Whatever’s inside making me what I am, it’s like film. Film only works in the dark. Tear it all open and let in the light and you kill it.

To me, acting is the most logical way for people’s neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves.

Racing is the only time I feel whole.

In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible.

What better way to die? It’s fast and clean and you go out in a blaze of glory!

There is no way to be truly great in this world. We are impaled on the crook of conditioning.

It was an accident, although I’ve been involved in some kind of theatrical function or other since I was a child – in school, music, athletics.

Am I in love? Absolutely. I’m in love with ancient philosophers, foreign painters, classic authors, and musicians who have died long ago. I’m a passionate lover.

I’m a serious-minded and intense little devil – terribly gauche and so tense that I don’t see how people can stay in the same room as me. I know I couldn’t tolerate myself.

Nobody would ever convince me that the bronchitis and pneumonia were caused by cigarettes.

I wrinkled my nose, trying to figure out what he smelled like. Not cigarettes. Something richer, fouler. Cigars.

The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared, you are both in that parenthesis. Its like a proscenium arch for a dialogue.

I met the surgeon general – he offered me a cigarette.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

But even today, ninety per cent of the items covered by the word are forgettable objects in which cigarettes can be left to go stale.

The second technique was the ever popular chimney fire and number three had to be the drunken cigarette drop on the carpet.

I never wanna have a time where I’m on the big lawn just sitting back smoking cigars and drinking lemonade. I wanna work forever. Until I die. I wanna die on the way to a show.