The most terrifying thing for most everybody in the whole Western World is to take responsibility for your own life and to experience real freedom.

My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk. My first performance was of a song called 'My Blue Heaven,' which I began singing when I was a year and a half.

I don't blame anyone but myself for the kind of parts I got. To blame external circumstances is absolute folly.

The most terrifying thing for most everybody in the whole Western World is to take responsibility for your own life and to experience real freedom.

Study up on the Eastern religions. They're the only ones that are realistic. There's no answer, see.

I'm just dealing with what's happening, with what is. Joy, happiness, good, bad, all those terms are meaningless to me.

Silence is the most powerful state.

I am not into any religions. I have been mostly influenced by Eastern religions - Taoism, the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism. But my belief is not having any beliefs.

I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.

I've passed up opportunities. I've avoided the spotlight. I've never been to Academy Awards, didn't relate to them.

Heisenberg, Max Plank and Einstein, they all agreed that science could not solve the mystery of the universe.

I made it a point not to graduate. I thought that was a positive, independent kind of statement.

There is no answer. That's what Buddhism says. The Void, oblivion, no answer. To be in that state is an enlightened state.

I realized early on that if I became an actor, I could play a writer and a sculptor and a painter and be all the things you just don't have time to be in your lifetime. I could get to learn about all of them.

I like to watch 'Paris, Texas,' but I have no desire to see it. I did it.

You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.

I play myself all the time, on camera and off. What else can I do?

I was offered a series by John Carpenter after I did the movie 'Christine,' and I would've been a leading man after that. I would have played a private investigator. And I was offered a great deal - I would be involved in the direction, casting, everything, and whatever. It was whatever an actor wants, and I didn't take it.

My favorite films are 'Paris, Texas' and 'Repo Man.'

I was the classic killer. I always played an angry man. I think it was because I used to really be like that - I was hostile. And because I had a good sense of theatrical truth, I used my anger and rebelliousness and just went with it. Anger was just a part of me.

I never liked being ordered around - which, of course, was an overreaction. I eventually found out that I didn't mind being ordered around at all when it was by someone who knew what he was doing.

I hated being typecast in those roles. It was personally limiting, only playing stereotyped heavies. But I got those roles because I was angry, because that's what I projected. I was angry at my mother and father because they didn't get along, angry at the church. On top of that, I had an extreme lack of self-confidence.

I sing and play guitar and harmonica. I've been doing it for a long time.

You want people to feel something when you tell a story, whether they feel happy or whether they feel sad.

But I'm not imaginative. I couldn't look into the future, like Star Wars or Robots or anything like that.

I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color.

California is full of Mexican culture and Mexican music.

I don't believe in singing lessons. You can sing or you can't.

I have a good ear for languages.

I like to stay home and watch television. The Game Show channel, mostly.

I really liked the Mariachi singing in Westerns.