I don’t really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

It’s nice to finally get scripts offered to me that aren’t the ones Tom Hanks wipes his butt with.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn’t been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn’t like what a woman her age is offered. That’s a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

When I’m making music, I can hear all the parts, all the instruments. I can hear what it should be.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

When I began in 1960, individuality wasn’t an accepted thing to look for; it was about species-specific behaviour. But animal behaviour is not hard science. There’s room for intuition.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

Acting is happy agony.

Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.

I didn’t have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

If you make up your own mind, you can only blame yourself.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.

As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

Even if you’re happy with the life you’ve chosen, you’re still curious about the other options.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

My parents had us in church every Sunday, every Wednesday. It was more of a tradition at that point; I didn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord until I went to the altar call one Sunday, and the youth pastor told us to make a decision for ourselves.

I always play women I would date.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure.

We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.

I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

Of two evils, choose neither.

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking – it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

I bought a gun and chose drugs instead.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

You’ve got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you’ve got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘

Playing big, heroic characters with heart is always a lot of fun. I enjoy making movies like that, and a lot of people love to live vicariously through those characters.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

I didn’t want to submit to the army and then, on the day of judgment, have God say to me, ‚Why did you do that?‘ This life is a trial, and you realize that what you do is going to be written down for Judgment Day.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

When in doubt tell the truth.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.