“When you’re young, you’re very reckless. Then you get conservative. Then you get reckless again.”

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of well-being in themselves. They don’t have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays.

There’s nothing like a nice piece of hickory.

You have to be realistic about where you are in life and enjoy it.

Take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously

Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort.

I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.

Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t have messed with? That’s me.

I never look back and think too much about my films. I’ve done some work I’ve been proud of over the years but which of them is my favourite I really don’t know. I could say the last one. I’ve had little jumps in my career like Unforgiven possibly.

People have lost their sense of humor. In former times, we constantly made jokes about different races.

Keep your eyes on the horizon and your nose to the wind.

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.

Let’s not go and ruin it by thinking too much.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

I’m a firm believer in research, but I’m also a firm believer in utilizing the instincts that are within your soul or in your body or in your stomach, wherever they reside.

Young people can understand, and must understand, that we had success, we had failures, but we never gave up.

When I was young I felt really overwhelmed and confused by the desire not to end up in an office, doing something I didn’t believe in.

It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do.

Young people are just smarter.

Children and young people are the future; they are our strength; they are what keep us moving forward. They are the ones in whom we put our hope.

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.

When a role for a young guy is being offered to me, I think of River Phoenix. It feels like a loss.

It’s a mistake not to give people a chance to learn to depend on themselves while they are young.