My wife is my closest friend. Sure, I'm attracted to her in every way possible, but that's not the answer. Because I've been attracted to other people, and I couldn't stand 'em after a while.
As you get older, you're not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn't running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing.
I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.
I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.
I don't mind telling a dark side.
At some point in your fife, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there's nothing really to talk about. And I think we're at a point now where a lot of older women take better care of themselves, compared to the 1940s and '50s when women were programmed to figure it's all over after 30.
As you get older you try to do things that please you more. You get a little more selfish. You start thinking I want to do things where I enjoy myself.
I'm thinking, That's Barack Obama. He doesn't go to work. He doesn't go down to Congress and make a deal. What the hell's he doing sitting in the White House? If I were in that job, I'd get down there and make a deal. Sure, Congress are lazy bastards, but so what? You're the top guy. You're the president of the company. It's your responsibility to make sure everybody does well. It's the same with every company in this country, whether it's a two-man company or a two-hundred-man company... . And that's the pussy generation - nobody wants to work.
I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that's always nice. And if they don't like them, then too bad.
When you're young, you're very reckless. Then you get conservative. Then you get reckless again.
When I was a kid, I thought movies just came from air. I thought they just appeared.
There are two kinds of actors -- one sits in a dressing room waiting for his call and the other gets out into the business and polishes his craft by absorbing everything. I don't know enough, I'll never learn everything I need to learn. When a guy thinks he's already learned it, he can only go backwards.
I don't really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.
They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.
Don't look at me like I've gotten old or something like that.
I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.
I'm not a regrets-type person.
A war is a horrible thing, but it's also a unifier of countries.
I am not a regret type person. I don't believe in regrets. Lots of things you would do differently if you'd do it again, but you don't do it again, so you don't think about it. But that goes for life in general. You're only dealing with the knowledge you have at that time.
Whatever the drama of the story is, you have to be true to it.
I was drafted during the Korean War.
You have to feel confident. If you don't, then you're going to be hesitant and defensive, and there'll be a lot of things working against you.
Pose? I don't pose. What am I? Paris Hilton or something?
You should just evaluate the work and make your judgments accordingly. That's the way you do it in life and every other subject.
I'd like to be a bigger and more knowledgeable person ten years from now than I am today. I think that for all of us as we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open.
Just try not to ingest a lot of fats, and just try to eat carefully.
If you approach a film with the feeling that you are going to have some impact on society then you're liable to get carried away with yourself. Alfred Hitchcock once told me, when I was analyzing a lot of things about his pictures, "Clint, you must remember, it's only a movie.
The more time you have to think things through, the more you have to screw it up.
I like the inspiration of the first take.
Great stories teach you something. That's one reason I haven't slipped into some sort of retirement: I always feel like I'm learning something new.
If you get a certain amount of notoriety for doing something, and you can stick to that type of project for the rest of your life and make a decent living, I think you still have a responsibility to stretch. Flexibility is what keeps you alive.
Some people feel that the world owes them a living.
You get to a certain age and you're just glad to be there. I don't know what to add to that. It's fun. You have to be a realist, so you try to look for roles that are within the age you are.
You know I've had people come up and ask me to sign their guns. Sign my name on gun handles and holsters and stuff. I've done it once or twice for law enforcement officials, but when people do that -- and there have been quite a few of them lately -- I always tell them no. I don't want to do that. I don't want my name on that and I hope you use this gun, whatever its purpose is, I hope it's used wisely.
Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.
Scott's Eastwood movie Snowden sounds fascinating. I want to see it because it's about deserting your country ... for whatever reasons you have. Edward Snowden became famous for the wrong reasons, as Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became famous for doing something spectacular.
I'm past doing one chin-up more than I did the day before. I just kind of do what I feel like.
I just think it is important that you realize, that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.
You take the work seriously, you don't take yourself seriously. You keep that straight and you'll do well the rest of your life.
I don't see myself as conservative, but I'm not ultra-leftist. You build a philosophy of your own. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live.
If you're doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don't know what was going on in the person's mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him.
In recent times it just seems that women have been relegated to either romantic roles or fluff pieces. So the appeal, for me, is to make a picture about a real woman.
I haven't been very active in politics.
A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama.
Are you going to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?
I never sympathise with the accused unless there's a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don't ever sympathise with the criminal.
You spend your life training to be an actor, observing people's characteristics so that you can design characters around what you've seen.
When anybody gives you an award, it could be wrong. You’ve just got to bear that it mind and go ahead and enjoy it. Like Morgan says, it’s a pat on the back, so great you’ll take it and then move on.
I just don't want to copy the current trends or do movies for teenagers. I want people to get more out of movies.
Everybody wants to make something they think is a surefire winner, though nobody knows what a surefire winner is, in my opinion.
I believe in my gut. Most people intellectualize their instincts away, but when you feel something, you have to go for it. A Fistful of Dollars was a great instinct for me, because here I was, a guy who's doing Rawhide.
As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.
The only reason I ever thought about retiring from the front part of the camera as opposed to the back is sometimes you think, "How many roles are there for someone my age?"
Most people who'll remember me, if at all, will remember me as an action guy, which is okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But there will be a certain group which will remember me for the other films, the ones where I took a few chances. At least, I like to think so.
Everybody is idealistic when you're a kid.
Alfred Hitchcock once told me, when I was analyzing a lot of things about his pictures, 'Clint, you must remember, it's only a movie.'
Once you finish a film, it doesn't belong to you anymore - it belongs to the audience to interpret it the way they feel like interpreting.
You see, in this world, there's two kinds of people, my friend - those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.
If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.
I want the troops from Great Britain and the U.S. to be successful, but by the same token, Afghanistan has always been a screw-up.
