Then I heard this genius teacher Stella Adler - I recommend you read anything you might find about her and if you have anyone interested in theatre, you get them one of her books.

To create characters, one must build background. And one of the tools we use is improvisation.

That's like asking a cobbler if he's made too many pairs of shoes.

The way I see things, the way I see life, I see it as a struggle. And there's a great deal of reward I have gained coming to that understanding - that existence is a struggle.

I believe every day when I wake up and go to bed and during my dreaming time there's some moment of truth that's in front of me that will always be in front of me until the end of days.

Everything is difficult, and everything worthwhile is difficult. A certain need, a need not unlike Mickey had: to know, to understand, and I had that need to understand and to know.

You didn't hear the angels singing. It was brought down to Mother Earth, which is where it should be. And that led me to a lot of other reading.

You're working on being a father, so that is something that when you experience it you'll understand the profundity of wanting to protect something dear to you.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.

They have equal weight and you do the same work you'd do if you were playing a dramatic role.

What fascinated me mostly about Mickey Cohen was that he, in his later years, hired someone to help him to comprehend literature, to help him to read better, to understand words better.

O God make us your people. Be our God!

How does the moon feel as it sees the ocean lap at your shores? The eternal pain of knowing you are there but forever out of reach...

He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it's bottled.

It seems like when you're in the race, they do everything they can to ignore you, so maybe being out of the race [I] might get a little more attention, we'll see.

John Glenn's father, known as Herschel, was mostly deaf from injuries in World War I. To help out at home, young Glenn sold rhubarb all over town from the family garden.

A novel must give a sense of permanence as well as a sense of life.

We can't give our children the future, strive though we may to make it secure. But we can give them the present.

Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

Life is like an elevator. On your way up, sometimes you have to stop and let some people off.