“At the end of the day, ‘Rocky’ is a love story, and he could never have reached the final bell without Adrian.”

Nothing’s harder than writing. There’s no comparison. With directing, you can bounce a lot of ideas around. There’s tremendous support – you’ve got editors and sound mixers. With writing, it’s all you, and it’s just crippling when people tear up your pages.

When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.

Boxing is a great exercise as long as you can yell “cut” whenever you want to.

I think I’m a much better painter than an actor.

The problem is, your ego sometimes tells you that you can do many things. But sometimes it’s best to stay focused and be honest with yourself.

If you’re gonna be a failure, at least be one at something you enjoy.

When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn’t expect me in comedies or musicals.

I thought marriage was tough. Golf’s like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel! It’s a psychological game that gets into your blood.

I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.

I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.

When you find the right components in your life, the right people, that gel with you, then you feel as though you’re invincible. It may be a fallacy, but you at least feel as though you can take all that life has to dish out.

You’re a disease. And I’m the cure.

I am not the richest, smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeed because I keep going and going and going.

Consider the source, Don’t be a fool by listening to a fool.

I think that’s become passe, but if you can surround yourself with a kind of monument to yourself and your family – a statement – and you can afford it, then that’s a noble project.

When I tried to branch out into comedy, I didn’t do very well at it, so I went back to doing what I do naturally well, or what the audience expects from me – action pictures.

I don’t like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don’t like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it’s essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you.

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading.

Keep your morale high, in spite of setbacks. At the end you are bound to succeed.

The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against disbelief.

You’ve been running so fast, through endless wants that slowing down seems tough.

He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.

My biggest concern is always the students who are working toward a certain career – when they limit themselves to just that one option. They need to know that the world is huge – it’s an ocean, and there are so many options. It’s not the end of the world if they don’t get to pursue an apparent childhood dream.