There`s something about matching the character with the script. And right now, the script that`s being written, and reality, is pretty brutal and pretty hard-edged, like a rough action film, and you need somebody who`s been in that to deal with it. - On Senator John McCain

I think that gravity sets into everything, including careers, but pendulums do swing and mountains do become valleys after a while... if you keep on walking.

That`s what Rocky is all about: pride, reputation, and not being another bum in the neighborhood.

People accept Rocky Balboa as authentic. I can`t tell you how many people have come up to me and asked about my boxing career. It`s like they really want to believe that Rocky exists. You know, I`m amazed by all of this. At one time I thought people would get over their fascination with the character and move on. Didn`t happen. After 30 years, Rocky has taken hold to a degree I never could have imagined.

[Following John Ritter`s death in 2003] It`s a huge shock. It just makes me realize how fragile life is.

I believe there`s an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.

I have a lack of fear, whereas in the past the fear of failure was a powerful motivator. Anyway, I have great expectations for the future, but I just don`t know if I`m the monarch of all I survey.

I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.

Once in one`s life, for one mortal moment, one must make a grab for immortality; if not, one has not lived.

[on Rocky Balboa (2006) and Rambo (2008)] Maybe these movies wouldn`t have been as interesting five years ago, but look what`s happened in the world in that time. It`s a whole different climate, now.

It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful.

[On "40 Days of Musa Dagh," a book about the Armenian genocide that he has wanted to direct for years] The hero, the one who set up the rescue, has fallen asleep . . . The camera pulls back, and the ships and the sea are on one side, and there`s one lonely figure at the top of the mountain, and the Turks are coming up the mountain by the thousands on the far side . . . an epic about the complete destruction of a civilization. The Turks have been killing that subject for 85 years.

What I`m trying to do now in my life - not just with the building, but with everything - is to construct things that will have enduring qualities, and won`t just be ephemeral flashes in the pan.

I respect a woman too much to marry her.

I`ve been involved in something which was chaotic and insane. All I can say now is that I am, and intend to stay, a single man.

I`m not right wing, I`m not left wing. I love my country.

Like I said, I`ve got too much respect for women to marry them, but that doesn`t mean you can`t support them emotionally and financially.

I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.

I have great expectations for the future, because the past was highly overrated.

[Talking about the proliferation of guns in the U.S., following the murder of Phil Hartman in 1998, who was shot to death by his wife] Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you`re gonna have. It`s pathetic. It really is pathetic. It`s sad. We`re living in the Dark Ages over there. It has to be stopped, and someone really has to go on the line, a certain dauntless political figure, and say, "It`s ending, it`s over, all bets are off." It`s not 200 years ago, we don`t need this any more, and the rest of the world doesn`t have it. Why should we?

You wake up one morning and you go, "What happened? Where did it all go so fast? There are many more things I want to do." And I figure a lot of people feel the same. A lot of people have so much they want to do, but society says, "Step back, youth must be served." I say, "You`re right, youth must be served - after us. Get in line. We`re coming back for seconds and thirds, and when we`re finished helping ourselves, it`s your turn." Just because people get older doesn`t mean they abandon their dream or their ability to want to do something, so Rocky is symbolic of still wanting to participate. Rocky says the last thing to age is the heart, so I wanted to do a film that shows our generation is not on the outside looking in; it`s still vital and wants to be part of the parade, not watching the parade. I want to show that life is not over at 50. People say, "Come on, grow old gracefully." No, why? I`m not ready. I know people will think Rocky is my story, but it`s also my generation`s story.

All art, in this business, is a matter of compromise. It`s not one man`s vision unless he takes very weak actors.

I enjoy comedy very much, but it just wasn`t right for me. Sometimes it`s better to just stay focused and do what you`re really passionate about.

Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.

Once is a man`s life, for one mortal moment, he must make a grab for immorality; if not, he has not lived.

I think that`s become passe, but if you can surround yourself with a kind of monument to yourself and your family - a statement - and you can afford it, then that`s a noble project.

I never had extraordinary genes or great bone structure, and I`m still very thin. What I try to do is create a body that every man can look at and say, "You know, with a certain amount of dedication I can achieve the same thing." I try to keep it in the realm of athletic, rather than unapproachable.

[on his marriage to Jennifer Flavin] It`s been a fantastic revival of my life. As you know, my first marriage didn`t go so well, though I have a relationship with my sons, but this marriage has been a second beginning. I used to think my career was number one, so I was gone nine months out of a year, but I learned the hard way that the most important thing is that you start at home and then comes the career.

I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.

I`m a patriot of the heart.

I had no idea Ellen Barkin was in the restaurant. If she was coughing or dying, she was doing it politely. I would have been more than happy to reach down her throat or squeeze her hard. Sat there dumbfounded? Please! I would have rallied round - just to avoid paying the bill.

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can`t change. After I die, I`ll probably come back as a paintbrush.

Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.

When I tried to branch out into comedy, I didn`t do very well at it, so I went back to doing what I do naturally well, or what the audience expects from me - action pictures.

Rambo isn`t violent. I see Rambo as a philanthropist.

Most action is based on redemption and revenge, and that`s a formula. Moby Dick was formula. It`s how you get to the conclusion that makes it interesting.

I abused my body so much throughout my career that I am literally held together by glue. The stuff I took thickens the bones and reinforces the tendons.

I was very much into buying contemporary art, but I`ve just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it`s not great art, but all of a sudden my mood has changed, and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.

[2002] We`re talking about doing another Rambo because I think it`s time to combine action with politics.

When you`re on top and you lead the parade, everyone`s there throwing lilies and lilac water on your head. But when those parades have gone by and there`s a storm in your heart, there are very few people that are going to sit there and listen to you bemoan life.

If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there`d be bodies hanging from every tree!

I`m a very physical person. People don`t credit me with much of a brain, so why should I disillusion them?

I`m not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren`t straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.

[on Rocky Balboa (2006)] I knew I would go through the embarrassment of hearing all the jokes about me. My wife begged me not to do it, and that`s why I wrote a line . . . that I`d rather do something I love badly than to feel bad about not doing something I love.

I think the people who have been so supportive and loyal will be happy with the final chapter in Rocky Balboa`s life because I think we bring the character to a final and noble conclusion.

[on Rhinestone (1984)] You`d have thought we all got together and decided how we could fastest ruin our careers.

[speaking of his life with a wife and three daughters] Living in a house where you are the only man is a little like being the only guy left at The Alamo. They just rule. Even our dogs are female. So there is no chance.

[In 1976, after completing production on Rocky II (1979)] But there`ll never be a "Rocky IV." You gotta call a halt.

I`m more focused and have a greater sense of challenge, because I constantly feel the weight of time.

[Explaining to The New York Times how he wrote the script for Rocky (1976) in three days] I`m astounded by people who take 18 years to write something. That`s how long it took that guy [Gustave Flaubert] to write "Madame Bovary". And was that ever on the best-seller list? No. It was a lousy book and it made a lousy movie.

That`s what Rocky (1976) is all about: pride, reputation, and not being another bum in the neighborhood.

I`m now starting Rambo (2008) and I`m looking for a young actor to star opposite me. I`ve been looking for the next Robert Mitchum or Steve McQueen, but the fact is they just don`t exist. Tough guys today are getting their hair done at Hollywood hairdressers. Whatever happened to having a beer and scratching your balls?

I have two lovely sons and some good memories, but I`ve had a rather tumultuous personal life. It hasn`t been dull; I`ve been the Hiroshima of love.

Once in one`s life, for one mortal moment, one must make a grab for immortality; if not, one has not lived.

I`d say between 3 pm and 8 pm I look great. After that it`s all downhill. Don`t photograph me in the morning or you`re gonna get Walter Brennan.

I`ll just go on playing Rambo and Rocky. Both are money-making machines that can`t be switched off.

No one likes to fail at anything, but I believe I`m a better person for it. I learned life`s lessons. You`re given certain gifts and that`s what you should try to be.

When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.

I`ve kind of fashioned my life after a Slinky. Bend me in a million shapes, and eventually I`ll spring back to what I originally was.

I never quite understood these actors - though I envy them sometimes - who can lie out for a year or two. I feel as though time is a real pressing issue, and I want to get as much work done in the time that I have left.

[1999] After I made Cop Land (1997) in which I played a timid, overweight cop, all of Hollywood turned their back. I`m surprised they even gave me this table. I`m like driftwood in here.

Suddenly I`ve got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.

[1991] I`m 5`10" and weigh 177 pounds. I`m pleased with my body now.

I`m not a genetically superior person. I built my body.

I think everyone has a certain kind of formula in their life. When you deviate from that formula, you`re going to fail big or you`re gonna win big.

[on Arnold Schwarzenegger`s campaign for Governor of California in 2003] I think it`s very dangerous waters. In that particular field you can`t yell "Action!" and "Cut!" and "Take two!" and "Take three!". I personally think actors should remain actors, but I know he`s always had blind ambition for that, so maybe it`ll work out for him.

I really am a manifestation of my own fantasy.

I love being verbal in films.

I know I cannot hold on to them forever, but I will as long as I can. I pity the first boy to knock on the door for a date. I`m gonna buy ten more Rambo outfits just to make sure they`re too scared to put a foot wrong. They will probably all run a mile, which suits me just fine. I know I won`t be able to help myself playing the worried dad. My girls were born with the flirt gene. It`s very funny, but it also worries me about what a handful I will have in a few years time. I know it`s stupid - I just don`t want them to grow up. I love my family. I can`t imagine life without them all in the house.