“I was an insecure kid. Once I saw ‘Hercules’ with Steve Reeves, it completely changed my life. If I had never gone to that film, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Theater is like boxing – having the audience ringside. It’s instant gratification. Or horrification.

Characters I’ve played, they used to impact my paintings, like 80 percent of the time, and especially when I was doing an action film.

The older I get the more things I gotta leave behind.

Clothing is the first step to building a character.

I wanted to show I had balls at age 60. Just because society says I’m old, doesn’t mean that I am. I’m pursuing happiness, even if it makes the people around me unhappy.

Artists die twice. First creatively. Then physically. The second one is the easiest.

I have tons of regrets, but I think that’s one of the reasons that push people to create things. Out of their angst, their regret, comes the best from artists, painters and writers.

Suddenly I’ve got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.

I think everyone has a certain kind of formula in their life. When you deviate from that formula, you’re going to fail big or you’re gonna win big.

Rocky’ represents the optimistic side of life, and ‘Rambo’ represents purgatory.

If it’s not broken, break it. That’s how new discoveries are made. That’s why everything that changes life is called a breakthrough.

I’m more focused and have a greater sense of challenge, because I constantly feel the weight of time.

Movies are a collective art. Art by proxy.

Every generation has to find their own heroes.

Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but the loyalty never fades.

I respect a woman too much to marry her.

Fill this cup to that love that never changes, never! Fill this cup to the love that goes on living forever! To the love that has been purified by earthly woes and at last with everlasting bliss, divinely glows!

Do we want to be successful, or do we just want to make noise just to make it? Or just to put something on the record? I’ll be honest with you, I’m tired of putting stuff on the record. I’m ready to see some real transformation and change.

I think I’ve changed a little bit. I don’t know whether it’s for the better or for the worse at the moment. I’ve settled into a different mind frame now… being a bit wilder maybe!

You’re going to change as you grow older, and that messes up a lot of relationships.

To write history is as important as to make history. It is an unchanging truth that if the writer does not remain true to the maker, then it takes on a quality that will confuse humanity.

Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.

Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?

[On being indecisive and changeable:] On my gravestone I want inscribed: ‘On the other hand, maybe I should have lived.