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.
Kevin Costner
Failure doesn't kill you... it increases your desire to make something happen.
You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted.
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.'
I've always known that I'm a little out of vogue.
Field of Dreams is probably our generation's It's A Wonderful Life.
Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get.
I think there are good men and women in all decades. We've grown cynical. And look at what we do to all our heroes: Churchill, FDR, Kennedy, they all had affairs. But heroic things happen every day.
I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does.
If you don't understand your limitations you won't achieve much in your life.
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.
When I played Robin Hood, I knew the great role was Alan Rickman's and it didn't bother me. I always think that leading actors should be called the best supporting actors.
If it's going to be wrecked, I want to make sure I wreck it.
If you're willing to tell somebody that you love them, are you also willing to say you're sorry? You need to, even when you think you're in the right.
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.
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 don't give up. I'm a plodder. People come and go, but I stay the course.
I try to please myself. I don't try to anticipate what people want to see.
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.
Lincoln was the greatest speaker and he was ridiculed for how he looked, you know?
I was sucked into this vortex of a very conservative upbringing.
I am a really writer-oriented actor.
I don't have a seller's remorse about how I've lived.
I work for the public, for the people who are paying to go to the cinema, rather than for the critics.
I like four-hour movies.
I wait and take on projects that I think can work.
I want to live forever, and I know I won't. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm only afraid of one thing: not being able to raise my kids.
We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.
I split my time between Santa Barbara and Aspen. I live on a pretty fast horse.
I haven't tried to buffer myself. I like rolling the dice.
When I see my children, and when I see the people who value me, I know how lucky I am.
I stand up for what I believe. I don't know if it's always paid off for me, because I've been ridiculed and humiliated.
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.
You just do the things that you love and see if other people can like them too.
I don't think I'd have been as good as Bruce was. He was a better JFK than I would have been.
I'm getting those familiar feelings, and I'm just going to enjoy the process of getting to know someone again.
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.
I think there's true drama in the formation of everything that we know and are standing on the shoulders of.
You have to try to dismiss the loudness of cynicism. It's certainly going to come.
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 only interested in being a good actor and in being remembered for my best films, not for the way I look. But it seems inevitable in this line of work that I have to care about the way I look without getting obsessed about it.
I've been around where I knew other actors were going to steal the scene, and I don't compete with them.
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.
One person doesn't have to shoulder all the responsibility for why a film does or doesn't do well.
I'm a pretty convenient foil for a lot 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?
There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.
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.
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 American history.
