“People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I’m flesh and blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed, but as a symbol, as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.”

I like the idea of movies having a magic element. How many times have you seen an actor in a movie who you know only as the character? It’s wonderful, isn’t it?

It was a great honor to be called a mo-fo by Sam Jackson.

I don’t personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.

If you’re doing your job properly, you take the risk of feeling slightly foolish and delve in and bring out the emotions.

All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have a deadline, you have an obligation. You’ve said that you will commit to this part, and I just can’t live with myself for not really giving it as much as I can.

I’ve had some painful experiences in my life, but I feel like I’m trivializing them by using them for a scene in a movie. I don’t want to do that. It just makes me feel kind of dirty for having done that.

It’s very easy to leave when things go wrong, but to stick around and to basically give life to a town because of everything that it gave you generation after generation after generation, that to me is what defines a true American.

I always leave that for other people to decide, because some of the things I consider to be disasters are some people’s favorite movies. And that’s what I like so much, is that you never know. Something intrigues somebody and means nothing to somebody else.

Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people have got to have their faith rewarded.

I have a fear of being boring.

We’re all conning ourselves, one way or another, just to get through life.

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn’t be so adored in the slightest.

I never want to feel that I’m playing it safe.

I would have been very happy just cruising around and enjoying the unexpected. I’ve never been ambitious.

Research can be interesting, but it can be pointless as well. The realities of making a movie often are not conducive with that. I’m not knocking it. I love doing research myself, but I admit it doesn’t always add to the performance.

I tend to think you’re fearless when you recognize why you should be scared of things, but do them anyway.

The disease of men is that they neglect their own fields and go to weed the fields of others.

And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?

The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.

This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

If rejection destroys your self-esteem, you’re letting others hold you as an emotional hostage.

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God’s name is Abraxas.

Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children; often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.

Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself.