When you speak of role models, when we talk to our kids, everybody is a role model, everyone, just as you look at a Michael Jordan to be the terrific athlete he is.
Without philosophy man cannot know what he makes; without religion he cannot know why.
I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.
Johnnie Cochran hasn't spent 20 years serving people in low-income, minority neighborhoods, ridding them of gangs and narcotics. I have. He hasn't been shot at and punched. I have. I've paid my dues to be able to say I'm not a racist.
One of the things that was probably to Dad's discredit was that he was never a fund-raiser. But he didn't live in an era of TV ads.
When I was stationed in Germany, Johnny Cash was already a legend over there because he'd done some shows, then gone off to some bar straight afterwards and played just for the troops. So he was a real hero.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Of course, Dwight D. Eisenhower gets credit for doing more for golf than any other White House resident, a mid- to high-handicapper though he was.
We wanted to do a sequel with Jim and Jeff. They said that the word was that Jim didn't want to do any sequels. We approached him and he said he would do it, but not until next year. New Line said it was too long to wait.
Newman has it all worked out. I get a million. He gets a million two, but that includes $200,000 expenses.
Everybody trusted Cronkite because he reminded them of their favorite uncle or trusted family physician. Being square in the age of the Beatles made Cronkite retro cool.
What I learned most from my father wasn't anything he said; it was just the way he behaved. He loved his work so much that, whenever he came on set, he brought that with him, and other people rose to it.
If an Englishman gets run down by a truck he apologizes to the truck.
When my father arrived in Kenya, he had found the Kikuyu way of life similar to that of the British at the time the Romans invaded England 2,000 years ago.
Physical elegance, which is what I am talking about here, comes from the body. This is no superficial matter, but rather the way that man found to honour the way he places his two feet on the ground.
Justin Theroux is the ideal team partner to have. He's a writer. He's a director.
I have good relationships with Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and especially Richard Holbrooke - he is my teacher. I learned a lot of great things from him.
He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
An expert gives an objective view. He gives his own view.
I'm more comfortable with whatever's wrong with me than my father was whenever he felt he failed or didn't measure up to the standard he set.
My father was a Norwegian who came from a small town near Oslo. He broke his arm at the elbow when he was 14, and they amputated it.
I thought that by saying no and explaining my reasons my employer would abandon his social suggestions. However, to my regret, in the following few weeks, he continued to ask me out on several occasions.
I don't think the isolation of the American writer is a tradition; it's more that, geographically, he just is isolated, unless he happens to live in New York City. But I don't suppose there's a small town around the country that doesn't have a writer.
A few of Ellison's short stories from the 1940s and 1950s were widely anthologized over the years. After a while, it became generally known that he was at work on another novel. Though he remained aware ever afterward of the authority 'Invisible Man' gave to him, no second novel followed his brilliant debut in 1952.
FDR once said he was like a cat, that he would pounce and then relax. That's much harder to do in the 24-hour cable world, because it's almost like the press demands of you to be saying something or doing something every day.
My father owned pit bulls when I was young. He sometimes fought them. My brother and a lot of the men in my community owned pit bulls as well: sometimes they fought them for honor, never for money.
What can you say about such a man as Christopher Reeve? He embodied all the best that a human being can hope to be.
Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.
We do see Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat, but it's very rare to see the Chinese male actor in Hollywood movies, which is something I take great umbrage with. You know, my son is Asian. He may want to direct one day; he may want to be an actor like his father - and I want that to be open to him.
Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
We are equally glad and surprised at Winston's return to office. It shows that he was built for success that he should have declined to withdraw and sulk over a superficial failure.
All views can't be true because all views are opposite; this is the logical aspect. For example, Islam says we are good in nature; Christianity says we are born in sin. Islam says God is a man; Christianity says He is more than a man, He is God. All truths can't be the same.
He wants to live on through something-and in his case, his masterpiece is his son. all of us want that, and it gets more poignant as we get more anonymous in this world.
My lasting impression of Truman Capote is that he was a terribly gentle, terribly sensitive, and terribly sad man.
Becoming a dad means you have to be a role model for your son and be someone he can look up to.
