There's a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.
Sylvester Stallone
When life hits you pretty hard, you can go into a dark corner.
For 'Rocky II,' I got a torn pectoral muscle, I got all beat up inside, I had to have an operation to splice things back together.
I am not the richest, smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeed because I keep going and going and going.
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.
Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.
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.
I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism.
I have all kinds of chest injuries; I tore my vein during 'Rocky II' and had 60 stitches. If you've seen 'Rocky Balboa,' you'll know how bad they look.
When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.
Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.
Life is more than sunglasses and hit movies. Reality - that's the main event.
You are what you leave behind.
When I'm doing a movie, I eat the same thing every day. For lunch, it's tuna salad or chicken salad and cole slaw. That's it. For dinner it's either veal and rice, fish and rice or steak and rice. It gets boring; boy, does it get boring.
I'm always looking for a new challenge. There are a lot of mountains to climb out there. When I run out of mountains, I'll build a new one.
When I saw 'Hercules,' my mind just exploded because I was extremely thin; I was insecure. I literally ran out of the theatre and started lifting things, anything I could think of - milk crates. I'm still lifting things. It changed my life.
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.
If you express yourself too much, you're considered weak.
Every time I've failed, people had me out for the count, but I always come back.
I have tons of regrets, but I think that's one of the reasons that push people to create things. Out of their angst, their regret, comes the best from artists, painters and writers.
At the end of the day, 'Rocky' is a love story, and he could never have reached the final bell without Adrian.
I have great expectations for the future, because the past was highly overrated.
Once in one's life, for one mortal moment, one must make a grab for immortality; if not, one has not lived.
I made some truly awful movies. 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot' was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes.
We're all expendable. We think the world's going to stop when a pope dies, or a king. And then... life goes on.
Painting is as close as a person can get to actually capturing the heat of the moment.
I could start a war in 30 seconds. But some countries spend 100 years trying to find peace. Just like good manners, peace has to be learned.
I respect a woman too much to marry her.
People don't realize that when they 'throw out' their back, it's often because of weak abs. These muscles are essential for lower-back strength and good posture.
If you don't have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.
If you think people are inherently good, you get rid of the police for 24 hours - see what happens.
I was an insecure kid. Once I saw 'Hercules' with Steve Reeves, it completely changed my life. If I had never gone to that film, I wouldn't be here today.
For every guy, there is an opportunity to be a lot better than he thought he could be. We can't all be the star of the team, but we can be a star in our life. That's where you set your goal.
The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end.
I believe an artist dies twice. The first time, it's just terrible - I've been there when the phone isn't ringing for years.
I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.
Don't be gullible, use life before it uses you. Understand there are no free lunches, and for every action you take, there's a reaction.
There aren't a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.
I try to combine in my paintings cinematic feeling, emotional feeling, and sometimes actually writing on the page to combine all the different elements of communication.
Years ago I was diagnosed with a condition, and my doctors prescribed human growth hormone and testosterone for its treatment. Under medical supervision, I have continued to use both medications.
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.
If you look at people that have survived crashing in the mountains and lived up in the snow for 40 days - it's possible to do extraordinary feats.
I know I'm incredibly unpredictable, and that's the only thing I'm sure of.
I have a fear of heights that borders on mania.
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.
You've got to show your soul otherwise you're just a piece of equipment.
I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.
Clothing is the first step to building a character.
When you're scared, when you're hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you're going to see what you're really made of.
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.
