"The shortest answer is doing the thing."

"For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can."

"I never had to choose a subject - my subject rather chose me."

"The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it."

"The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."

"If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work."

"Cowardice... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination."

"Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination."

"Never mistake motion for action."

"We have come out of the time when obedience, the acceptance of discipline, intelligent courage and resolution were most important, into that more difficult time when it is a person's duty to understand the world rather than simply fight for it"

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

"Never confuse movement with action."

"The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green."

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love."

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work a"

"I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another's company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success."

"Some people show evil as a great racehorse shows breeding. They have the dignity of a hard chancre."

"I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can."

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."

"I kissed her hard and held her tight and tried to open her lips; they were closed tight."

"I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink."

"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective"

"Write down five things you love to do. Next, write down five things that you're really good at. Then just try to match them up! Revisit your list once a year to make sure you're on the right track."

"My friends say, 'Man you're going to have kids sleeping on pillowcases with your face on it! You're going to be on toothbrushes and magnets and stuff.' I guess now that I'm a dad, I'm thrilled about that."

"When I come home, my daughter will run to the door and give me a big hug, and everything that's happened that day just melts away."

"To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions."

"That's the great thing about parenting. You end up going places you never thought you'd go."

"My gosh, I love food. If I wasn’t an actor, I could be a completely different body shape right now."

"Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It's like the ultimate rest. It's better than the best sleep you've ever had. It's a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh."

"My father is very Jean Valjean. He's what I would call a great example of a religious person. He is a deeply thoughtful man whose religion is in his deeds way more than anything else. It's not talked about that much."

"I'm not a loner at all."

"The first show I ever did, singing and dancing, was 'Beauty and the Beast.' I was playing Gaston. Gaston has red tights, knee high boots, and it's very physical. I had headaches every day for two months."

"It's absolutely physically demanding to play the role of Wolverine. There's a lot of action, and I try to do as much of it as I can because it's better for the audience."

"If I could only do one exercise, it would be dead lifting. For cardio, I dance, I ride my bike, I run and I have kids. There is a... lot of cardio just from being a parent."

"I like to dress up in a tailored suit from time to time, and there's a tailor I go to in Naples who's fantastic. But if I told anyone his name, I'd have to kill them."

"I always felt love from both my parents."

"I've always felt embraced by the Broadway community even before I felt like I earned it."

"When you dance, your body just wants to find its natural weight. I'm naturally a lot more Tommy Tune than I am Wolverine."

"I wanted to be a lawyer. Then a journalist. Actually, I graduated from university as a journalist."

"My dad's main client was the World Bank, and he spent most of his time traveling to Third World countries. His particular interest lay in the eradication of poverty through development and business."

"I lived with a coffee farmer called Dukale on a trip I made with World Vision to Ethiopia, and realised there's no good reason for the disparity in opportunity around the world."

"For Sunday breakfast, I make orange and ricotta pancakes, crepes and eggs. You know men, we usually go for breakfast because it's the easiest thing to cook and then we try to make it seem fancy."

"I feel so lucky to have both a son and a daughter, because there's a different relationship with each of them."

"Coming to terms with our true natures and who we really are has always been a fascination to humans. I know it fascinates me."

"I have two children and it's amazing how in tune they are with nature, with light, with smells, with time."

"That's all about the natural order of things, the idea of nature protecting children but also children protecting nature."

"Salvatore Ferragamo have done some nice handmade suits for me."

"But in another world, another life, probably growing up in another country, I might have been more of a dancer."

"One thing I do personally started 20 years ago. I started meditating, and I know twice a day I can kind of let everything drop. It's just about being quiet, like drawing back the day, and it allows me to have energy."