Movies were invented for Jimmy Cagney, and he was invented for the movies. A perfect match.

See, ‚A Time to Kill‘ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.

I love making movies, but there’s nothing like performing live.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are.

I do love the films I’ve done in the past. I work hard in my movies and my friends work hard and we’re trying to make people laugh and I’m very proud of that.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

As a producer, as a CEO of Hartbeat Productions, I am making deals to put my company in place to win, to put my staff to work so that while all this stuff is going on, they’re in the kitchen cooking. So it’s understanding the longevity of the entertainment business; you get out of it what you put into it.

I’ve choreographed all of my movies.

Stand-up is hard.

I was very honored to get to be part of ‚American Idol.‘

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

A lot of people think I’m a comedian.

Changes are not unusual – I mean, most movies, when they release them, they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world.

Pop is totally results-oriented and there is a very strong feedback loop.

Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.

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

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all – make us laugh, think, cry and cheer – preferably in that order.

People don’t want drama 365 days a year. I’m a sense of relief; it’s my job to take your mind off what’s bad for that brief second you’re in the room with me, regardless of shape, race, colour or anything. It brings people together, and it makes me feel good about what I’m doing.

Kids end up seeing my movies anyway but some of the mothers get mad at me so I figured I’d make one that I can’t get yelled at for.

I don’t feel that I’m explaining the world or teaching people anything. And I’m not trying to be a mirror, showing them what’s really going on the world. All I’m trying to do is think of stuff that’s funny, just like when I’m kidding around with my friends.

I like my fair share of board games.

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright’s pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

Morgan Freeman is so class. He’s so cool. He’s so scary.

I do all my own stunts. I’m kidding.

I always play women I would date.

We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.

I take a lot of pride in the work I do, because people pay to see me. They’ve got to get babysitters, park their car, get popcorn and candy. I’ve got to be conscious of that.

It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.

I will never win an Oscar, and do you know why? First of all, because I’m not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money for all those old farts in the Academy.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I’d sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it. I loved anything that moved up there and I didn’t miss anything that happened and there was no popcorn either.

The thing about HD-DVD that is attractive to Microsoft is that it’s very pro-consumer in letting you copy all movies up onto the hard disk.

Men don’t care what’s on TV. They only care what else is on TV.

You are always hoping that movie audiences are interested in characters and interested in story values rather than just mindless special effects. But you never know.

Men like a ref decision because they just want to get back to the game.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

I sell escapism.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera – or an NHL game.

I met Will Smith twice. I didn’t talk to him for too long but I was trying to let him know that my age group grew up watching him – he was the coolest guy on television and the coolest guy in movies.

I want to be an Asian Robert De Niro.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There’s entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.

In Hollywood, a lot of times when something is in development, it just takes a lot of time.

The challenge for me as an actor is if you become a celebrity, you don’t meet strangers anymore. And strangers are where we have our anonymity. And I believe it’s essential for the soul to be anonymous, especially if you’re going to be an actor.

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

I didn’t watch ‚The A-Team‘ movie. I’m an artist. You can’t re-paint a Rembrandt. You can’t duplicate that; I don’t care who you get.

There are folks who now know black families – like the Johnsons on ‚Black-ish‘ or the folks on ‚Modern Family.‘ They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

I’ve always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he’s been in front of the camera. He doesn’t have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.

I like the good life too much, I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.

My goal is to make everyone and anyone a Kevin Hart fan.

When the first big paycheque with ‚Dumb And Dumber‘ hit, I went: ‚Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?‘ But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.

Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.

Disneyland is a show.

I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ‚em up myself.

I’m not Russell Crowe. I’m not going to do a period piece.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

I never thought, in my lifetime, that you’d be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

It’s simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they’re done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it’s what they see. That’s where my head is at.