Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It sounds vain, but I could probably make a difference for almost everyone I ever met if I chose to involve myself with them either professionally or personally.
In America, politicians do whatever to get re-elected, and a lot of decisions that were being made at that time by Kennedy were certain not to get him re-elected.
If you think of 'Liberty Valance' or 'The Searchers,' there are moments in there that you'll never, ever forget... And it does not matter what century you are from.
I have instinctually thought I could do things in my life, and I followed that up by sometimes putting everything I have at risk - my money, my house - to make a movie.
Some people come to you because if you're in their movie, it'll help them raise money. And some people come to you because they think you're the person to play the part.
I'm a coach's coaching player. I like to be on the floor. So, if the coach tells me what to do out on the floor, I can get it done. I'm really comfortable being directed.
What are we blaming? Is this Vietnam? We made a movie, it didn't make much money. I'm gonna be really happy if somebody watches it in 10 years' time and really enjoys it.
When I played Robin Hood, I knew the great role was Alan Rickman's and it didn't bother me. I always think that leading actors should be called the best supporting actors.
When I make a film I'm away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.
You have to pick the stories that you want to be involved with and the end game is you'd like to be a part of a hit. But I think your moral obligation is to follow your own heart.
I enjoy sports. I get a real joy from playing sports but I don't look for those movies. Oliver Stone wanted to know if I would do Any Given Sunday and it just didn't appeal to me.
I don't have a seller's remorse about how I've lived. I am cognizant of what I have done, and any of us could maybe draw the line better. But I've tried to live pretty fearlessly.
There's nothing more noble than a father and mother making an opportunity for their child, knowing that their life is gonna be hard. There's something incredibly heroic about that.
If you're going to tear down a hero, you should never forget that you're tearing down someone else's hero. You're tearing down somebody else's son. You might have to face her one day.
I was always listening to my father more than anyone. I was always afraid of my father more than anyone. But there's a moment in time where other men in your life can have a huge impact.
I'm in a position where whatever I do, I can get my head handed to me. I'm in a position to fail because there is a whole group of people out there who want me to fail. It's a weird vibe.
I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody, they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter, but I think you can recognise my films.
I have a tremendous belief in people, not that people don't let me down, not that I haven't maybe let some people down. But I have a tremendous belief in people and in the common experience.
I actually play sports better when I'm mad. Some players don't play better when they're mad. They lose their sense of where they're at. I have a tendency to do better when I'm under pressure.
I have seen soldiers panic at the first sight of battle, and a squire pulling arrows from his body to fight and save his dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright, but is defined by one's actions.
I think there are good men and women in all decades. We've grown cynical. And look at what we do to all our heroes: Churchill, FDR, Kennedy, they all had affairs. But heroic things happen every day.
There are a lot of things that come to bear on movies now that I don't think are good for movies. They're trying to appeal to the biggest demographic and, when they do that, you sometimes flatten out.
The kind of love that these young men have and the respect that they have for their fathers, I don't see that as much in America as you see in the Latino community, and it's really something to behold.
I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.
Westerns aren't about the gunfight, even though it has to be there at one point. It's not what they're about, at least the good ones. It's about the drama. It's about the resourcefulness of men and women.
I haven't lived a perfect life. I have regrets. But that's from a lifetime of taking chances, making decisions, and trying not to be frozen. The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them.
I wanted very much to do Traffic and at one point it looked like I was going to work on it. And then, of course, Catherine Zeta-Jones had her relationship with Michael Douglas and it suddenly didn't happen.
When I read Thirteen Days I was moved by it. It was just a great time for the world, in terms of looking back in history and seeing how we got ourselves into trouble and how we got ourselves out of trouble.
I'm proud of all the movies I've made. They're not sequels, they're not franchises. And the reason I pick my films carefully is that I don't want to spit on my life. I like to think of myself as more than that.
We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.
The western will always be here. And it just depends on how good you make one. And one movie doesn't kill it. And one movie doesn't preserve it. It's storytelling. It's a very American thing. I'll continue to do it.
I dream of big things. I work for the small things. If you're going to dream, you might as well dream big. A lot of that came from my mother. She was adamant about the work ethic---about how you can't just dream things.
I've had moments in my life where it was all out on the table. Everything I had. I'm okay with that, because I had a strong belief that what I was doing other people could believe in it, too, if I can get it just right.
I'm a 'what if' person. I have always felt that failure was a completely underrated experience. I have taken blows. I have had high moments. But I don't think the blows have ever hardened me. My enthusiasms are still big.
I would hate to see a UFO. Because it would ruin my life. I would have to talk about it the rest of my life, and everybody in the room would go, "Poor Kevin." Because you could not turn your back on the idea that you saw it.
I'm only interested in being a good actor and in being remembered for my best films, not for the way I look. But it seems inevitable in this line of work that I have to care about the way I look without getting obsessed about it.
I think if you want to make a good sports movie, you've got to cut down on the sports. You have to make it about people. You can't try to impress people with your knowledge and the X and O's and all the details and the technicalities.
I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.
My whole life has been instinctual for me. I wouldn't do well in the computer world. My children look at me for a question and then they quickly look away because they know that I'm not going to know how to make Super Mario or do anything.
Sometimes it takes a partner to say, "What is it you want?" because I think we operate in life and sometimes we don't know. We're all in some kind of maze going after the cheese at the end, and we get it and we go, "What is it that we want?"
We really don't rest if we think our kids are drifting, or if we think they don't have the right work ethic. It drives us crazy. Because we ultimately want them to succeed and, until they do, we feel in some way that something is not complete.
We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone, that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away.
President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation, but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.
When you start searching for your name, you might be thrilled with what a lot of people say and it just takes one person. And it can hurt your feelings, but I have been aware of the fan bases and stuff like that and realize how deeply involved they are.
I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does.
When I read a story that I think has value and I want to be in it, that doesn't change for me. It doesn't fall out of favor for me. I might have to move on because the universe is saying you can't make this right now. But I'm going to circle back and make it.
We all have that burning question about what happens if we lose somebody we love, especially if we lose them tragically. We wonder what fear was going on, we wonder if we could have reached out and touched them, held their hand, looked in their eyes, been there.
I think these movies are as much for people of that time as for people who weren't born. For people who weren't born, they see how leaders must act under a crisis situation, not trying to be re-elected or not trying to check polls, that they go from their gut check.
When you try to portray people's lives, you try to make sure you don't portray them as clowns and that you give them a level of dignity. You don't try to change their persona, but you try to understand that they had unique problems, set in a century that you don't live.
I think that you try to raise the bar on whatever you do because you know, in this day of having to deal with a lot of reality TV, people say that scripted programming is dying, so you have to try to create something that can live in people's minds, long after they see it.