It's not a gift of mine, but one given to me, to be able to criticise myself and not be crushed, by myself or by others.

Where women are concerned, the rule is never to go out with anyone better dressed than you.

I know for a fact that a lot of actors are desperate and unhappy if their careers are not progressing at what they think is the correct rate. They just go crazy if they're not working. I don't feel I'd be that way. You can always get a few people together and put on a play. Maybe not in New York or L.A., but in a lot of other towns, you can.

I grew up in the Midwest, quite far from any ocean or any beach, a million miles. I think for kids who grew up where I did, the idea of California, surfing and beach life was so exotic and glamorous.

Some directors expect you to do everything; write, be producer, psychiatrist. Some just want you to die in a tragic accident during the shooting so they can get the insurance.

I probably have more female friends than any man I've ever met. What I like about them is that almost always they're generally mentally tougher, and they're better listeners, and they're more capable of surviving things.

I can have incredible self-discipline. But see, I think it's obviously a form of stupidity.

When you do a really good play, the audience and the performers are looking into the same looking glass, the same microscope. And the specimen they are looking at is human life and that's why I do it, that's why I like it.

I don't lose my temper very often now, and if I do, it's well deserved.

People always say life is short. I've never been convinced of that - mine seems to have a tendency to go on and on.

Well, I design costumes because I started with the theater in Chicago, but somehow a few lines just sort of fell to me to do it. And I studied it in school and I always liked it.

I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.

I think 1973 was the nadir of fashion. When you watch the coverage from that era, you're struck by the astonishing ugliness of the clothes.

Nothing you do particularly matters. But I'm not sure that's a great excuse for doing it poorly.

It's tough to figure out how do we compete in Europe and North America, when obviously a living wage for us is very different than a living wage in Indonesia.

I just start with a pencil and paper. I don't want something too trendy, too fashion-forward. I don't want to make something I consider a regular person couldn't wear with blue jeans. But I don't want to make something that other people make, either - like a skinny black suit in a shiny material that you can buy anywhere.

I don't want a trillion-dollar empire to run.

Of course it's trivial, but then most things are.

If I had spent as much time in the weight room as I did designing football uniforms, I probably would have had a free college education.

If you're too smart it can limit you because you spend so much time thinking that you don't do anything.

The world is ruled by violence, or at least the imminent threat of violence. It always has been.

I'm more boring and more conservative.

Most of the women that I like have a haunted quality - they're sort of like women who live in a haunted house all by themselves.

I lost seventy pounds eating nothing but Jello for 4 months. But of course there is great variety in the colors! I think, if I remember correctly, it's 230 calories for a whole bowl. Maybe 270? In the 5th month, I added fruit.