“I went back to the stage because it was my way of dealing with the success I had, my way of coping.”

Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God… and where can you go from there?

It would be hard to play a character you don’t like – for me anyway – or can’t find something in them to like.

I don’t talk politics and I don’t talk philosophy or anything like that, but if you look at my work, you might get an expression of me as a person.

Certainly the movies were always in the air for me. I come from the era when actors thought it was a big deal to be in the movies.

I’m an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.

I once asked my oldest daughter [Julia Marie] if she thought about changing her name in school and she said, “No, I’m a Pacino. That’s my name.”

I had these little babies [my twins] and it gave me something so spectacular, such a feeling – I was so turned on and so excited by them that I wrote a poem.

When you’re acting for a camera, it keeps taking and never giving back.

What’s this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?

All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be,

I like women who can cook. That’s first. Love is very important, but you’ve got to have a friend first.

I don’t see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

So that you and the audience are giving to each other, in a sense. It’s an extraordinary thing. It’s wild turf up there.

The fruit falls off the tree. You don’t shake it off before it’s ready to fall.

I understand it on a superficial level, but the depth of it just boggles my mind. I think it’s probably the greatest of all speeches ever written.

Forget the career, do the work. If you feel what you are doing is on line and you’re going someplace and you have a vision and you stay with it, eventually things will happen.

You’ll get back to where you came from.

Once Michael gets up there he says, ‘Well, maybe I’ll just hang up here in the air for a while, just sit back.’ Then all of a sudden, he says, ‘Well, maybe I’ll 360.

She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.

I’ve spent the past month in Washington D.C. and it is terrific to be back in America.

I think about my sons and the legacy I have to leave for them – and it always brings me back to reality.

When I come back, we’ll all need each other to step up our games and do what needs to be done.

Like everything else, love’s not worth much without some action to back it up.

Standing on that platform, I said a silent prayer. I thanked God for giving me the strength and the opportunity to come back, to play basketball again, and to be part of that whole magnificent Olympic experience. It’s a memory I will always cherish.