“Look at Bjorn Borg or Jack Nicklaus. Those guys really concentrate. With the world on their shoulders, they’re so absorbed with what they’re doing.”

I wouldn’t think I would coach again, because it would just be hard not being in the Cowboys’ blue.

I learned early in sports that to be effective – for a player to play the best he can play – is a matter of concentration and being unaware of distractions, positive or negative.

I just didn’t want to leave the Cowboys when they were down.

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.

A winner never stops trying.

If you are prepared, you will be confident, and will do the job.

The secret to winning is constant, consistent management.

Character is the ability of a person to see a positive end of things. This is the hope that a man of character has.

If you’re disciplined enough, you don’t get down when you’re behind, and you have a chance to create something positive.

Every coach has his own style of play, but when you spend your whole life as a Cowboy, you have to be influenced by what we did.

If I had to pick my greatest strength as a football coach, I say it would be innovation.

People striving, being knocked down and coming back… this is what builds character in a man.

Therefore, I never worry about tomorrow or never worry about winning or losing football games. That knowledge gives me a lot of composure in tough situations.

Today, you have 100% of your life left.

Really, coaching is simplicity. It’s getting players to play better than they think that they can.

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it’s so incredible, it’s unbelievable.

I’d been depressed before, of course. But I’m talking about really depressed. Not just feeling a bit down or sad, a depression that has something to do with biorhythms. I’m talking about the kind of depressed that floats in upon you like a fog.

I don’t really worry about the size of the part much any more.

Some things are just really difficult to do. That’s what I find hard. I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it’s a struggle sustaining that, because there’s such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.

It’s really clear to me that you can’t hang onto something longer than its time. Ideas lose certain freshness, ideas have a shelf life, and sometimes they have to be replaced by other ideas.

I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don’t think it was decided at that meeting.

If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.

I really don’t like plays or movies that service propaganda.

I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of famous made me leery.