The greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife.

Very often some of the religious miracle plays you see on television can be very corny, I find. And so simplistic.

I`m better than Olivier.

You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you`re making a fiction film, it`s entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.

My father`s people... are from Fairfax in northern Virginia, just across the Mason-Dixon line. So it was an honour to play Lee, he was a great general.

The money part is one of the most difficult things. Coppola always said I should do a tango movie. If it hadn`t been for him, I don`t know where we would have gotten the money.

I`ll keep on acting `til they wipe the drool. I like the business. I like to do different parts and diverse characters. I haven`t lost my enthusiasm yet!

Hollywood is still the mecca for good or bad, but it isn`t the beginning or end for filmmaking.

I wouldn`t mind starting to ride some more if I had a really good horse to just work a little bit with every day.

Although it wasn`t that easy to do, it was wonderful working with John Wayne.

You have a little bit of feeling for everyone you play.

I love the smell of juice boxes in the morning.

You get below the Mason-Dixon line and you have some of the best music, culture, the two races, the literature, and it`s so rich.

I like to do things that I develop from the ground up.

We all have a cradle-to-the-grave journey to make and, in between, what do you do? There`s got to be something hereafter.

[on the reason he didn`t appear in The Godfather: Part III (1990):] If they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that`s fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did. (Francis Ford Coppola) came to my farm, parked his car ... went in the kitchen. (I) said: `I know you always wanted the crab cake recipe, let me cook it for you.` Oh, he loves to eat, so I cooked the crab cake... and he wrote it down ... and he forgot it, so he called twice. He was ... more concerned that he forgot the crab cake recipe than would I be in Godfather III. [January 8, 2004]

We either accept weaknesses in good people or we have to tear pages out of the Bible.

It`s no big thing, but you make big things out of little things sometimes.

I always thought of myself as a later bloomer, so I like some of my work more later than earlier.

To this day, I still think Lonesome Dove is my best part.

You just can`t take a crash course to be a tango dancer in a movie.

I don`t have many people showing up at my door. Very few people come out. When they do, I get a little suspicious. I live way up on a hill, way, way back in the country.

I wanted to show that crime doesn`t pay. If you are saved and accept the Lord, you cannot use that as an excuse to avoid punishment.

High Noon is a pretty corny movie.

Today, everything has to be made by committee, and has to have special effects, but there`s always room for good films.

There was nothing wrong with shouting at God.

Too many people think that economics is this subject that should wait until the university level. But it can`t wait that long.

God does guide the lives of individuals and does fill them with the Holy Ghost.

My uncle always said that I could have been a rancher.

Spending two years on my uncle`s ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.

Around my own friends, I like to mess around.

The cultural contrast I saw between religions... Catholics have a lot of mediators, going through saints and Mary or whatever. Protestants in general say things to God directly.

It`s a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It`s America`s genre.

I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.

There`s a place called La Biela, it`s my favorite corner in the world. It`s a coffee shop near the Recoleta where Evita`s buried. You can go there and sit in the evening, at 3 in the morning there are hundreds of people in the streets. And you can get up at 8 and go back and have your espresso. Going to Argentina, going to Buenos Aires, I like it more there than anyplace else. (On Buenos Aires)

I think I nailed a very specific individual guy who represents something important in our history of the western movement. After that, I felt I could retire, that`d I`d done something. (On Lonesome Dove)

[1983 comment on Francis Ford Coppola] Coppola`s talented. I`m pissed that he cut a scene that would have given the audience an insight into my character in "Apocalypse Now," but he`s talented.

Everybody likes to win. One of the biggest disappointments was when I didn`t get an Emmy for Lonesome Dove. It`s political. It can be a popularity contest.

One guy asked me, `How can you be an actor and be a Republican?`. I can vote either way. But how can you boil it down to political affiliation? All the atrocities against blacks in the South were committed by Democratic sheriffs.

I don`t think he was that great. He was good, but there was Brando, and there was founding member Steven Hill in the Actor`s Studio, those were the two guys. James Dean came in third. Dean was talented, obviously. But he died at a good time. [On James Dean]

Being a star is an agent`s dream, not an actors.

They should keep their mouths shut. - on Hollywood political activists