“What do you want me to tell Romney? I can't tell him to do that. I can't tell him to do that to himself. You're crazy. You're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden.”

“I'm not afraid to look bad on the screen.”

“My father died very suddenly at sixty-three. Just dropped dead. For a long time afterward, I'd ask myself, Why didn't I ask him to play golf more? Why didn't I spend more time with him? But when you're off trying to get the brass ring, you forget and overlook those little things. It gives you a certain amount of regret later on, but there's nothing you can do about it. So you just forge on.”

“When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.”

“They've got this crazy actor who's 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they're probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.”

“In the end, you really want to make the best film that you can, and in the reality of the filmmaking world, you have things like budgets.”

“I worked with Sidney Lumet years ago, and we had a long rehearsal process, and he would tape out the entire set on the stage, so I stole that from him.”

“As the filmmaker, yes, I have to look out for everybody. But I don't have to know everybody's approach.”