American Quotes

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.

We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.

Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.

I have found that being honest is the best technique I can use. Right up front, tell people what you're trying to accomplish and what you're willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?

In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.

Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor.

Music should always be an adventure.

If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying.

I made the tenor sax - there's nobody plays like me and I don't play like anybody else.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

If you should see any Indians you will oblige me by repeating this prohibition to them.

I think that no matter how dark a person is, the more you learn about them, the more you understand about their life, the more you can sympathize with them or even root for them.

I met Robert Rodriguez working on a movie called 'Roadracers.'

I maintain that if you're a novelist and you go into an art museum, you'll come out a better novelist. And if you paint a picture for an hour you're a better actor at the end of it.

I lived in Texas for 10 years.

I have to be careful of what TV shows I choose, particularly ones that have commercials in them, because it's going to be a different kind of television show.

I guess you can say that every actor is a 'character actor' on some level. But I think some actors have a wider range. I think that's how you get that mantle.

I generally play strong people and scary people.

I don't think there are in life, pure darkness or pure light. Everyone's got a little of everything.

I don't really try to judge any character that I play, afterwards I figure it out, but while I'm working on the character, I have to find something in them to relate to.

I don't mean to be highfalutin about it, but I try to limit my visibility.

I don't have any training as an actor, but I guess I'm an intense pretender. When you read something over and over, it gets into you a little bit. You can't help but begin to feel it, even if you're a healthy person as I think I am.

I don't have actor training myself.

I do all kinds of roles - nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho - and occasionally someone kind of normal. It's weird, when I lived in Austin I was always cast as pretty normal people. But when I moved to Los Angeles I was immediately branded a psycho.