“There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.”

Plagiarism is always the biggest thing in Hollywood.

You have to trust your instincts. There is a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it.

Always keep your ego in check and not be afraid to listen. Listening is a great art form.

It’s what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid.

There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.

I’m trying to preach the idea that if we don’t pay attention to history we’re destined to repeat it.

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!

Self-respect leads to self-discipline.

Being comfortable is over-rated.

If you’re afraid to take risks in anything in life, it’s just boredom.

I’m not really conservative. I’m conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don’t any more.

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They’re wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They’re imagining they’re out in the yard playing. They’re imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid.

I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that’s always amazing to me.

I am sort of anti-hunting. I don’t put down what anyone wants to do, but it seems to me that killing a creature for fun is not a progressive idea.

Fate pulls you in different directions

Free speech, free press, free religion, the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition. Well, they are still radical ideas.

Football is about joy. It’s about dribbling. I favour every idea that makes the game beautiful. Every good idea has to last.

We can’t encourage narrow mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought.

I told them my system was based on the “ant plan,” that I’d gotten the idea watching a colony of ants in Africa during the war. A whole bunch of ants working toward a common goal.

Poetry is – it’s an art form, but, to me, it’s also a weapon, it’s also an instrument. It’s the ability to make ideas that have been known, felt and said. And that’s a real, I think, type of duty for the poet.

People used to believe their life-or at least their life as a performer-was over at 28 or some ungodly age! God, when I think of myself back then, I had no idea who I was. I think I’m barely getting that under control now.

The idea of my life as a fairy tale is itself a fairy tale.

Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.