“I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.”
“I've had some movies that have been ridiculed, but that's OK with me. I don't feel that really defines me. Should I change who I am to be popular?”
“Field of Dreams is probably our generation's It's A Wonderful Life.”
“I'm a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first casualty in life - people seem to give them up, quicker than anything, for a 'reality.'”
“Failure doesn't kill you... it increases your desire to make something happen.”
“I know I have this level of celebrity, of fame, international, national, whatever you want to call it, but it's a pretty surreal thing to think sometimes that you're in the middle of another famous person's life and you think to yourself, 'How the hell did I get famous? What is this some weird club that we're in?'”
“We all have that burning question about what happens if we lose somebody we love, especially if we lose them tragically. We wonder what fear was going on, we wonder if we could have reached out and touched them, held their hand, looked in their eyes, been there.”
“When I read Thirteen Days I was moved by it. It was just a great time for the world, in terms of looking back in history and seeing how we got ourselves into trouble and how we got ourselves out of trouble.”
“I like American history.”
“When I make a film I'm away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.”
“I haven't lived a perfect life. I have regrets. But that's from a lifetime of taking chances, making decisions, and trying not to be frozen. The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them.”
“Money isn't a major motivating force in my life. Nor is my profession. There are other things that I care more about than being an actor.”
“I think these movies are as much for people of that time as for people who weren't born. For people who weren't born, they see how leaders must act under a crisis situation, not trying to be re-elected or not trying to check polls, that they go from their gut check.”
“I enjoy sports. I get a real joy from playing sports but I don't look for those movies. Oliver Stone wanted to know if I would do Any Given Sunday and it just didn't appeal to me.”
“I'm proud of all the movies I've made. They're not sequels, they're not franchises. And the reason I pick my films carefully is that I don't want to spit on my life. I like to think of myself as more than that.”
“There are a lot of things that come to bear on movies now that I don't think are good for movies. They're trying to appeal to the biggest demographic and, when they do that, you sometimes flatten out.”
“I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody, they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter, but I think you can recognise my films.”
“I like four-hour movies.”
“I wanted very much to do Traffic and at one point it looked like I was going to work on it. And then, of course, Catherine Zeta-Jones had her relationship with Michael Douglas and it suddenly didn't happen.”
“President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation, but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.”
“I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.”
“We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone, that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away.”