“Take every job. Learn everybody’s name. Show up early. Know who you are and know who you’re not. Stop dreaming and start trying.”

Lincoln is me. He is America. He is what makes us a great nation and a dangerous nation, all wrapped up in one man.

The live audience is a blind date. The camera is a hungry lover. One wants to be wined and dined and seduced and then decide where the evening will go.

Ask questions. Listen. Be quiet. Be willing to make a fool of yourself. Be willing to be completely exposed and to give all you’ve got and to be rejected for your troubles. But expect magic to happen. It just might. And don’t worry about winning the audition, just win the room.

Lincoln could be on the moon. He’s still Lincoln.

The other knows how it wants to be touched, wants it now and can damn well tell if you are lying about it. Both are fickle. Both feel good. Depends on your mood.

I am pre-disposed to try and show the conflict; the regret; the less-than-perfect choices that any human faces. That’s what I like and it seems to be what the camera likes to see me do.

I want to be Lon Chaney. I want to be Karloff. I want to help people escape the mundane world. I want to make their skins crawl. And I want them to love it every bit as much as I do.

All you have to do to be a camera actor is tell the truth.

The fact that Abraham Lincoln ever, ever became President is either a freak accident of history… or destiny; God’s providence to America.

Abraham Lincoln is resolute, honest, has the best interest of the nation at heart, and he’s as ugly as homemade Sunday sin, so he is modest, too. I’d vote for that in an undead heartbeat.

You never can take for granted that you have a job.

If I did not believe God healed, I’d quit tomorrow and go get a job.

Starting a company is a cause, not a job. Once it becomes a job, that’s when you lose

Get a Job’ is about all the rich kids we knew when we were younger, kids who never had jobs but always had money for partying or getting their hair done.

In order to bring down the incarceration rate, you’ve got to start with the beginning of life. You’ve got to make sure that parents and schools are prepared to prepare young people for success. You’ve got to deal with the next stage of life.

Basically, I have no place in organized politics. By coming to the British Parliament, I’ve allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and let go the more effective job I should be doing at the bottom.

I’ve been in scenarios as an actor where you have to manufacture an emotion that’s not really there, but it wasn’t hard with Halle because she’s a great person and very beautiful, so it ain’t a tough job at the end of the day.

I write what I want to write. Period. I don’t write novels-for-hire using media tie-in characters, I don’t write suspense novels or thrillers.