I liked being Doc Holliday. It’s fun to be insightful and aristocratic, to stand up for your friend and make sacrifices for him. It was fun to be arrogant like he was and have the goods to back it up. He was a very noble character. Although, let’s not forget, he did kill a lot of people.
There is no normal life, there’s just life. You live it.
I saw the horizon. It’s out there. And though I may not ever be able to touch it, it’s worth reaching for.
It’s important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it’s a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.
I don’t make any pretense about being normal. I’m not.
Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don’t have to declare war. You’re just at war and we did that, which is not legal.
It seems to me that every step forward in my life has been one that brings me to a better understanding of this: that you do your thing every day the best that you can, and you approach any success at it with humility.
My perception is that I’ve never done anything but work really hard.
If you know where your spiritual center is, and you neglect it, peace will always allude you.
Give me the compliments. I love compliments. I was born modest, but it wore off.
I respect people who can do both careers, like Will Smith and a couple of other people who have done it, but I just don’t know when they sleep.
The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don’t have to think about it, you’re just acting and reacting in those circumstances.
Do what you like to do so well that someone will pay you wages for it.
Once is more than generous for any lifetime.
I’m very wary of news on television.
I think spiritual perception comes from natural and healthy relationship to the land and I’ve had that. I get an easy, automatic sense of myself in nature, a wholeness and I feel nowhere else. I think people should live where praying is most immediate. That`s why I live in New Mexico. The physical terrain, the feeling, the environment and culture improve my life just by waking up there.
You never quiet the love message. Never.
My only “business plan” was to get lucky.
You just don’t understand humility until you have children and get divorced. I was very hurt and very angry and so was she. But when kids are involved, you either become friends with respect or you become mortal enemies.
It looked like it might not work out with Michael Keaton, so they asked Joel Schumacher, `Who do you want for Batman?` When he said me, I asked my agent, `Why? Who did they not get?` I`d met with Joel a couple of times before about other (movies). I didn`t know anything in terms of the cast, story or anything, but I said, `Sure, sounds like fun.` – On accepting his role as Batman.
My only challenge is to entertain. And I accomplish my task better when I myself am entertained by what I am doing. I am very critical of myself, I constantly set the bar higher and higher. I try to surpass myself. That`s all. But I also know how to preserve myself, to not let myself get bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors.
Warren Beatty once told me that if someone’s really stuck on you, find them their next boyfriend. But I could never do that.
That’s the joy of art – it should be dangerous and challenging but it’s just art – it’s safe.
I don’t believe in death. I think it’s just a state of mind.
It`s probably fair to say I have taken myself too seriously on some jobs. I`m sure I`m more guilty of being difficult than I`d like to remember. I don`t regret my desires; I`ve regretted the way I would communicate my desires. Maybe I`ve lost a job because of some rumor, I doubt it. But nobody good that I`ve worked with has ever said anything negative about me, because we`ve never had a negative experience. By good, I mean directors who do their homework, people that are passionate, crazy, never sleep, and do like I do and just go after it.
