“It’s very evocative; it’s like a first cut because you hear ‘She walked to the door,’ and you visualize all these things. ‘She opens the door’ . . . because you read the stage directions, too.”

The difference between the actor and the painter is that the actor would buy somebody a knish in order to have them watch him act.

On any given Sunday you’re gonna win or you’re gonna lose. The point is — can you win or lose like a man?

They say we die twice – once when the last breath leaves our body and once when the last person we know says our name.

I always had this thing, when I was younger especially, I didn’t want to do movies that much.

Anybody who cares about what he does takes risks.

I destroy it because it’s no longer coming from my unconscious.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you.

[Oscar Wilde’s Salome screenplay] is not autobiographical in a sense where you go to my house and see my kids and stuff like that, but that’s why I guess it’s semi-autobiographical.

You’re talking to him and all of a sudden, you say, “He’s puttin’ that in his cash register!”

A kiss is a lusty dollop of dessert to be served with desire and savored with passion.

There are a couple of times I would’ve liked to have married. I think I made a mistake, especially once.

It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I’d go home and act all the parts.

I’m sensing something and I’m going along with it. It reminds me of a painting, the way Jackson Pollack painted – Jackson Pollack, the great, great artist.

Either I act or I die.

I am more alive in the theater than anywhere else, but what I take into the theater I get from the streets.

The thing that can get you a little upset is when people say other people are better than you. That can bug you.