“My mother is very wise and intelligent. If I have children and can do half as good a job as she did in keeping me in line, I’ll be very happy.”

For me, the martial arts is a search for something inside. It’s not just a physical discipline.

Immortality is to live your life doing good things, and leaving your mark behind.

For what level of mediocrity will you settle?

There’s sort of a theory that’s going around in the China-watching community about a perfect storm coming up with the 2008 Olympics, a U.S. election and a Taiwanese election, some sort of mutually reinforcing explosion and crisis.

I’ve made six films since I made Secrets and Lies but I still live in London and I’d love to do theater.

Believe me, nothing is trivial.

Once you do lose a job, there are not a lot of social supports for you. You lose health insurance because we have this absurd system in America where health insurance is usually tied to employment. Your income dips. And that’s when you get into selling the house.

Happiness does not come from football awards. It’s terrible to correlate happiness with football. Happiness comes from a good job, being able to feed your wife and kids. I don’t dream football, I dream the American dream – two cars in a garage, be a happy father.

No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.

If you’re standing in the manure pile, it’s somebody’s job to mention the stink.

Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.

Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing.

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

My everyday job is about superficial beauty, but when I’m not working I prefer to work on my inner beauty – I read a lot, I try to learn.