When you read a script, you don't want to be the same guy all the time, you want to change, you're a different person. That's why acting is a wonderful career. You're not the same guy all the time.

Lesson number one: Don't underestimate the other guy's greed.

Nevertheless, I tend to get offensive easily.

The Italian mafia, they're very [into] construction. They're in a whole different way of operating than they did back in the '20s.

I think a lot of what you do depends on the other people in the cast. It doesn't only depend on you the actor, but it depends on a variety of things, what the other actors are like.

An actor is an impersonator; he plays many different roles. If you played the same role all the time, God that'd be a boring career.

If the guy has a gun, that's the power. He doesn't need to wave the gun; he just needs to point the gun in a very relaxed fashion.

When you take on different roles and become a different person, that's called acting ... It's a challenge.

When you play somebody, you pick up a lot of their gestures, his voice, the way he speaks, his body language. You don't often get that opportunity.

John Huston is more of a creative director than most.

The problem with books is that they end.

I'm not a member of any organized party I'm a Democrat.

You can get rich or famous by doing the same thing.

All the preaching in the world cannot make a man see the truth so long as his eyes are blinded.

For every person who can imagine a possibility there are tens of thousands who are stuck in the greased grooves of history.

Out of my entire annual output of songs, perhaps two, or at the most three, came as a result of inspiration. We can never rely on inspiration. When we most want it, it does not come.

[The church's] job is to provide permanent solace and spiritual leadership to the people as a whole, whatever their government at the moment, so long as it stays within the bounds of moral decency.

Most violence is intra-racial, and much of the violence in African-American communities is a function of drug availability, joblessness and poverty.

I mean, I always feel incredibly lucky to get a job.

Democrats in Louisville were led by Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson and were implacably opposed to blacks voting.