I don't smile a lot in my pictures. I'm always so... grim.
Michael Douglas
I'm impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work.
If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.
I come from a tough stock.
Cancer didn't bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.
I don't wish ill will on anybody.
The one thing that men and women have in common - they both like the company of men.
When I go on a holiday to a tropical place, I'll spray tan before I go.
With 'Black Rain,' I spent a lot of time with homicide detectives, and I spent a lot of time with different brokers on 'Wall Street.' It helps get the rhythm of the piece and the tone, and how overplayed or underplayed it might be. That's also the magic of movies: You get to hang out and live these different lives.
I do think of myself as a bit of a loner, a bit of an independent. I'm one of those people who, when they're sick, like to curl up and remove myself. I don't like a lot of people around. There is nothing you can do to help.
I don't know if likeable, pleasant characters have enough conflict for me to want to do them. I admire those people, but I've never been that kind of screen presence who can do nothing. I need to do something.
Like a lovely orchid, or anything else that's nurtured, marriage prospers and grows, but if it's ignored, it withers.
Cancer has shown me what family is. It showed me a love that I never knew really existed.
My mother is Bermudan, so I had a lot of memories when I was a kid, used to go down to Bermuda a lot.
'King of California' was just, I thought, a really great, fresh, original kind of script. I loved the tone, the mix of tragedy, comedy, and drama, and that it was a good part.
Capitalism is part of our system, but it's not for the faint of heart.
If your work isn't exciting, doesn't stir the emotions, where's the challenge? Where's the progress if you always play it safe?
Serious is when they tell you, 'You've got cancer.' Cancer is serious, but then the rest of it is not.
I love kids, and I love having had this second chance to have a family.
I've always liked Tina Turner.
My movies are usually about stripping off the makeup, getting down to the skeleton.
Do you know what absolute happiness is? For me, it is to wake up my kids in the morning - these little pieces of innocence - to wake them and find they're so happy to see me! It is unequivocal love, no question about it.
I was there the night John Lennon was shot, three blocks away. It left a lasting impression on me.
Learning patience was not an easy lesson.
Sometimes we spend more efforts with people that are strangers in terms of making an impression than the person that's closest to us. And you just gotta remember not to take for granted that person that's closest to you.
There's nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life.
I've been dying to do a Marvel picture for so long.
I have some idea of the pressure of finding your own identity with a famous father.
In 'Wall Street,' Charlie Sheen carried that movie.
I tell my kids they are going to live to over 100.
The Cold War's end pushed disarmament down most leaders' agendas. It's a sophisticated issue, which I think is one reason why it is not so hands-on to many people. It's not visceral. It's not like a starving child.
I had a great stepfather.
'Five Easy Pieces,' 'Easy Rider' - those are indie pictures; those were not studio pictures. They had relationships with studio distribution, but they were indies.
Retiring gives the impression that you're relieved that your job is over.
I believe there is a spirit within us, which we nurture based upon our efforts and what we bring to the world. But it doesn't come from the outside; it comes from the inside.
Our economy is increasingly dependent on the success and integrity of the financial markets.
I met Michael Milken for the first time with Oliver Stone at the Drexel Burnham offices in Los Angeles.
My memories of Las Vegas were all with my father when I was, like, a teenager. He was best friends with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and we'd come up and see the shows and go backstage afterwards and have dinner together. It was one of my first educations about stars and how they really are back stage.
When you are a celebrity, nothing remains secret for very long.
Liberace was one of the biggest stars in America. He was a kind of a phenomenon.
I'm a risk-taker. Most of my career has not been a joyful experience, but it has been challenging. I like the dangers.
In the movie 'Wall Street' I play Gordon Gekko, a greedy corporate executive who cheated to profit while innocent investors lost their savings. The movie was fiction, but the problem is real.
Celebrity gets you access to world leaders.
I went into rehab to save my marriage, but I wound up saving myself.
I don't know about Brad Pitt leaving that beautiful woman to go hold orphans for Angelina. I mean how long is that going to last?
The so-called 'last golden age,' in the 1970s, most of those movies were independent films.
The quality of health care in Canada is excellent.
You just have to know what your responsibility is to the movie, and live up to that, and be considerate of the other actors in the scene... I have never been competitive in that way - I always want my leading ladies to be as good as they possibly can be.
Like my father, like most actors, I was a pretty ambitious guy.
I don't ever do those kind of epic, huge, green-screen movies.
