Actors know, with me they aren’t going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Acting is happy agony.

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don’t want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you’re not performing at your best.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

Computers double their performance every month.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘

You can sometimes play some really good football and not score.

When you campaign and have to participate in so many debates just to the win the nomination of your party, you’ve had a lot of practice. You get to figure out as you go from one debate to another where you made your mistakes. By the time you get to the big debate you’re pretty polished.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

There is something about building up a comradeship – that I still believe is the greatest of all feats – and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.

Engineering training deals with the exact sciences. That sort of exactness makes for truth and conscience. It might be good for the world if more men had that sort of mental start in life even if they did not pursue the profession.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

Cardi B put a lot of work in.

I like entertaining people. I really miss it.

I got this powdered water – now I don’t know what to add.

I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I’m not a photographer, so I didn’t get into F-stops or ND filters or background, foreground, cross-light, all that stuff. But I was interested in the camera and the lenses. That’s the world that I’m moving in, in terms of acting and giving a performance.

If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it. You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people.

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

There are a whole bunch of roles where people say, ‚Oh, you’re playing yourself.‘ I guess it’s kind of a compliment. Or people say, ‚Oh, man, you just roll out of bed and do that.‘ The work is to make it look effortless. That’s the hard part.

So many writers don’t like to write… I like to write, and sometimes I’m afraid I like it too much, because when I get into work, I don’t want to leave it. And as a result, I’ll go for days and days and days without leaving my house.

Once you get on the playing field it’s not about whether you’re liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That’s what it’s about.

I want to show audiences I can act.

To be able to finish opportunities that I do get in the paint, that makes a difference.

I’m really happy and had such an amazing time performing at Super Bowl – wish I could relive it all over again.

I do my job like I breathe.

I want to – more than anything – to create a moment that people will never forget. Not for me, but for themselves. That’s what I remember about great Super Bowl performances in the past, when you really get lost in the moment with your family.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

I’d like to think I’m a great teacher.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

Before I do a stunt, I have to make sure it is safe.

I want to consistently play well and win titles. I’m only at the beginning.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.

You can scream at me, call me for a shoot at midnight, keep me waiting for hours – as long as what ends up on the screen is perfect.

Because my career is so important, I think I make a lot of – I wouldn’t call them sacrifices, but just concessions for my job. I love what I do, and I want to do it for a long time.

I probably work harder, putting in a lot of time and effort, than a lot of drivers because all I think about, and all I do, is to do with racing, trying to make myself a better driver.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

I like to sing ballads the way Eddie Fisher does and the way Perry Como does. But the way I’m singing now is what makes the money.

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.

I think the really good mountaineer is the man with the technical ability of the professional and with the enthusiasm and freshness of approach of the amateur.

When you stand for something, you’ve got to stand for it all the way, not half way.

See, winners embrace hard work.

Be more dedicated to making solid achievements than in running after swift but synthetic happiness.

If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.