Well, it's like my movie, 'The Apostle.' Some people in the North don't get that movie. They think that, in the South, if you don't shout, you can't play one of those guys.

I would like to ask each of you: Would you be in favor of some kind of education on birth control and if so, how would you use that as a possible solution to the ever present question of abortion.

Stripping away artifice - it's the constant standard I aim for in acting, to approximate life. People talk about being bigger than life - but there's nothing bigger than life.

There's no smoking section in heaven.

I don't have many people showing up at my door. Very few people come out. When they do, I get a little suspicious. I live way up on a hill, way, way back in the country.

I'll keep on acting 'til they wipe the drool. I like the business. I like to do different parts and diverse characters. I haven't lost my enthusiasm yet!

I'm getting good offers, as good as ever sometimes. I just finished a thing with Billy Bob Thornton that was the most unique part I've ever played in my life, in the most unique project.

Although it wasn't that easy to do, it was wonderful working with John Wayne.

It's no big thing, but you make big things out of little things sometimes.

You just can't take a crash course to be a tango dancer in a movie.

I'm a man without a corporation.

When you shift the gear and that little needle on the tach goes into the red and reads 9,000 rpm, that's bad.

When you dance tango fast, you have to think slow.

Cows is one thing. But one man telling another man where he can go in this country is something else.

I wouldn't mind starting to ride some more if I had a really good horse to just work a little bit with every day.

I've always liked country music. It's a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America.

When I'm at home in Virginia, I become more hermit-like. I like my own home.

It's like kids playing house: 'You play the father, I'll play the mother.' You know, you dress up, you play, they pay, you go home. It's a game - acting's a game.

Look, Hollywood's a mecca, but it's not the final answer. You pick up a camera anyplace in the world, you can make a movie.

It's a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It's America's genre.

Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result.

There's a lot of ignorance in our business... Everybody's an authority. To have your own vision is rewarding.

Sometimes you don't prepare much. I mean, when I did 'Lonesome Dove' way back I rode horses day and night for like three or four months, and that got me ready for that.

My father's people... are from Fairfax in northern Virginia, just across the Mason-Dixon line. So it was an honour to play Lee, he was a great general.

If I ended my career, I wouldn't mind doing a TV series if it was a western and I played a mute gunfighter so I wouldn't have to remember lines every week.

One thing I like about Argentina, they only cook with salt; that's it.

If you don't have heroes in the beginning, you don't grow.

Listening to critics is like letting Muhammad Ali decide which astronaut goes to the moon.

I take a vitamin every day; it's called a steak.

The beginning and the end of the tango is the walk.

There's no right or wrong just truthful or untruthful.

Smell that? You smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Never use money to measure wealth, son.

The one you fight with the most is always the one who’s most like you.

If you don't daydream and kind of plan things out in your imagination, you never get there. So you have to start someplace.

Not every successful man is a good father. But every good father is a successful man.

We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities.

What people don't understand about Sarah Palin is that she is a rancher's wife. From Alberta down to Texas I've known women like that: good common sense, bright and vilified by city people.

I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.

I had a wonderful career.

I can't live without a woman. I have to have a woman, have to have a wife.

Seeing your name on the list for KP or guard duty when you're in the Army is like reading a bad review.

Look, Hollywood's a mecca, but it's not the final answer. You pick up a camera anyplace in the world, you can make a movie.

I was fortunate in the last century to be in the two biggest hits film-wise, 'Godfather I' and 'Godfather II,' and 'Lonesome Dove.'

As long as they keep offering me some good parts and so forth - there are some parts out there that fit me pretty well - I'll keep going for a while.

I'd like to direct again, but that's really hard to get something and raise the money. It's difficult to find just the right thing.

I'm getting good offers, as good as ever sometimes. I just finished a thing with Billy Bob Thornton that was the most unique part I've ever played in my life, in the most unique project.

Sometimes directors will hire you and say, 'Oh, we love your work.' And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, 'Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.'

What people don't understand about Sarah Palin is that she is a rancher's wife. From Alberta down to Texas I've known women like that: good common sense, bright and vilified by city people.

But I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.