“Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.”

I think life has got to develop as you get older, and I don’t want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life.

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I’m my own most vicious critic. So I’m always trying to do it better.

It’s a lesson in life – don’t look back, you’ll trip over.

My father was a fish market porter. So I grew up on fish, because he used to steal one a day, I grew up on the very best fish that money could buy, ’cause he only stole the good stuff.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can’t deal with a woman of their own age.

It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.

Use the difficulties – if you can’t avoid them

I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.

When you reach the top, that’s when the climb begins.

I don’t have any regrets because I’m very optimistic, and live each day as though it’s the last.

It’s vital to have your own space so you aren’t constantly in each other’s pockets.

I’m every bourgeois nightmare – a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I’m pig-headed.

You start pretending to have fun, you might have a little by accident.

I don’t think human beings are bad. They’re weak. And that’s what makes ’em bad.

Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you’ve had a life like mine, you have to.

Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.

I would imagine that if you could understand Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.

I think animal crackers make people think that all animals taste the same.

Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that’s good taste.

I type a 101 words a minute. But it’s in my own language.

When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lakeshore Drive, it’s hospitality.

I went to the airport, I put my bag in the x-ray machine, I found out my bag has cancer. It only has six more months to hold stuff.

An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs.