"You can't leave civilization behind entirely."

"America is terrified of the passage of time. Prozac Nation. Land of Face Lifts."

"From dear, dear Gloria Swanson, I learned how to live long, happy and free of health problems. I owe her my life."

"A stage play requires very different craft from a book, fiction or otherwise, and ditto from a screenplay."

"Time is money, as they say, and it was never more apropos than on a television show, where a minute is worth about $200!"

"Movies are movies, television is television."

"In many ways I wish I wasn't an actor dragging around the baggage from being one so that I could just devote my energies to encouraging people to find their true selves."

"It helps to be able to be alone. 'Cuz writing is done alone, unless you collaborate, but I don't do that. Ask my ex-wife."

"I'm the worst person to ask about how to get noticed. It took me 25 years."

"My favorite thing is to be alone in a room with a blank paper in front of me and the time to fill it."

"Life: my favorite occupation."

"Children who cling to parents or who don't want to leave home are stunted in their emotional, psychological growth."

"To me, all writing is like music. And especially dialogue. I studied music in college; that is what I wanted to be, a composer. Acting got me sidetracked."

"We are all vegetarians here, and except for a mountain lion that's been hanging around and killed our dog, we don't have a care in the world."

"Children... are our legacy. Our responsibility. They are our destiny and we are theirs. The extent to which we fail as parents, we fail as God's children."

"Films must all have the same structure. All of this to guarantee box office bonanza, which of course it never does, but that's another discussion entirely."

"From Fred Astaire I learned discipline and hard work."

"If you want to have great success, you'd better give them what they want, but so be it."

"Generally speaking, actors are allowed NO input. Actors are dumb."

"I have written two nonfiction books, I'm embarrassed to say."

"The space genre is timeless."

"Hollywood... a city I was to come back to time and again, in sickness and in health, in success and in failure, with anticipation and with dread."

"I am very willing to share whatever I know or feel I know about finding some serenity in this lifetime."

"I wanted to be Anthony Hopkins and ended up being neither a film star nor having a career on the stage."

"When I was a young actor... the more different you were from the part you played, the more talent it reflected."

"I'm a classic example of what can happen if you follow your inner voice. I was cursed with interests and some talent in many different areas. It confuses people."

"Anybody can write a film script 'cuz it has been reduced to a formula."

"The only difference from one $100 million budget film to another is which of the 12 box stars are getting $20 million to be in it."

"Change is good. And in fact unavoidable."

"I believe that the first 8 years are most important and the time in a child's life when parents must be absolutely and completely present."

"If we wait until our lives are free from sorrow or difficulty, then we wait forever. And miss the entire point."

"Hollywood today is all about being consistent. All thinking in mainstream film business takes place in one box."

"The best things in life are usually difficult."

"It is a good motive, fame and money, as it is tangible and measurable. Being an artist is neither measurable nor tangible and certainly not a way to become rich."

"It is all about marketing; that is where the real craft comes in. The best actors do not necessarily become the biggest stars. And vice versa."

"Harrison Ford was pretty content as a carpenter who thought it would be nice to work on TV and ended up being the biggest film star in the history of cinema."

"I am very abnormal... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy."

"Be very clear as to what your dream is. Nowadays it is fairly certain that 90 percent of all actors really just want to be rich and famous as the solution to all that ails."

"I never get involved with the ladies I work with."

"I write from my imagination, not from what I've read in books or seen on TV or to make money. I wrote from an idea I was passionate about."

"Life has never been easy. Nor is it meant to be. It is a matter of being joyous in the face of sorrow."