I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

I can be in 20 movies. But I'll never be an actor.

I never enjoyed working in a film.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

You have to give people permission to laugh. That's why they would always cut to the banana peel in the Laurel and Hardy movies.

All movies aren't fun; some are hard work. You try to do something and convey a set of emotions that have to do with some real life kind of stuff.

Not everybody goes to movies to get their life changed.

I won't go to movies with permissiveness, four-letter words, or violence. Show me 'E.T.' and 'Chariots of Fire' instead. That's entertainment, not exploitation of the human body.

It's a difficult line to tread, where sometimes you go to the movies or you watch someone do publicity for movies or TV shows, and they do all the jokes that are good in the promotion of it, and you see the movie, and you're like, 'I kind of get it already. I'm not that psyched about it.'

Everyone told me to pass on 'Speed' because it was a 'bus movie.'

I don't believe in superheroes but I love Batman movies. There's a part of every person that is entertained by the idealistic, the fantastic.

I always loved all kinds of music. I would watch musicals a lot as a kid, on TV, watch the Fred Astaire movies. I'd watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' I was a big Jerry Lewis fan, and they'd have these big bands and someone singing - some siren, or some guy singing some gorgeous song. I was always enamored of that style of music.

Since I got into the movies, 'Running Scared,' that did $40 million. 'Princess Bride,' I got good reviews for the character Miracle Max. 'Memories of Me' didn't do well. 'Throw Mama from the Train' did $70 million. 'Harry and Sally' did 95 or 96. 'City Slickers' did $120 million.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he's playing.

Movies are like magic tricks.

You know, I've sold a lot of bad movies in my time.

I think something that every actor wants, whether they've done four movies or forty movies, is they want to find the work interesting. You want to come to work and think this is going to be a challenge.

I do believe that movies are subject to a million interpretations.

There's an electrical thing about movies.

If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.

A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie, if I personally enjoy the movie.

One of the problems with science fiction, which is probably one of the reasons why I haven't done one for many, many years, is the fact that everything is used up. Every type of spacesuit is used up, every type of spacecraft is vaguely familiar, the corridors are similar, and the planets are similar.

Ideally I'd like to be working steadily as an actor: movies, a TV series, that sort of thing. I've been through a few different TV development cycles, and they didn't work out. When the time and project are right, it'll come together. Like I tell a lot of guys, it's not a race; there's no finish line.

I see a lot of movies. I love films as a spectator, and that's never obscured by the part of me that does the work myself. I just love going to the movies.

When you go to watch a baseball game, when you go to watch an NBA game, when you watch an NFL game, when you go to watch movies, the offering that those arenas are doing foodwise is 'all the hot dogs you can eat'; all the French fries you can eat; for $20 you can eat 20 hot dogs.

There is a heavy Mexican Catholic streak in my movies, and a huge Mexican sense of melodrama. Everything is overwrought, and there's a sense of acceptance of the fantastic in my films, which is innately Mexican. So when people ask, 'How can you define the Mexican-ness of your films?' I go, 'How can I not?' It's all I am.

I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

I like to look at the songs like they're little movies.

My daughter's dabbling in showbiz, and she's done a few commercials. She's auditioned for some movies and shows, so I'm letting her pursue that. I'm OK with it.

People are always talking about the old days. They say that the old movies were better, that the old actors were so great. But I don't think so. All I can say about the old days is that they have passed.

Billions of people have seen and been influenced by movies in the short history of this industry.

Go see it and see for yourself why you shouldn't go see it.

Why should people go out and pay money to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?

I appreciate a slow-burn romance. In most movies, everyone is just tearing their clothes off in the first scene.

I love doing normal things - movies, shopping, going out with friends, writing, reading, taking hot bubble baths - that's a big one for relaxation. I also love to go to art and history museums.

If I can't get the girl, at least give me more money.

The spy genre is something which, as a fan of movies, a movie geek myself, I just love that cinematic joy that they bring.

I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.

The movies I made when I was 14 or 15, I have a hard time looking at those. Those were the awkward years. I don't know if anybody can look at something they did when they were 14 and not wince.

All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life.

Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic.

Scientists appear most often in horror movies. Through childlike curiosity or God-defying hubris, they unleash destructive forces they can't control - 'Forbidden Planet's Monsters of the Id.

Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of bell curves, and pretty much everyone is on a tail of at least one of them. We may collect strange memorabilia or read esoteric books, hold unusual religious beliefs or wear odd-sized shoes, suffer rare diseases or enjoy obscure movies.

Listen, there are some movies that are set in stone and the writer or the director does not want to change, but I've never worked on a movie, including my own, that didn't take advantage of a rehearsal process.

We have to accept that making movies is a never-ending process of occasional progress, frequent setbacks, and unexpected curveballs being thrown our way. Navigating that process requires stamina, curiosity, openness, and creative fire.

I want to tell the story. Mostly, when you see rock movies, it has to be this over-the-top thing. I want to give people a Bret Michaels movie where they see that my life is a comedy of errors. I also want to show my fans how to get through the kind of troubles that would leave most people flat on the floor.

Most of us do not consciously look at movies.

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

In Chinese culture, it wouldn't occur to kids to question or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows and movies constantly score points with their snappy back talk. Typically, it's the parents who need to be taught a life lesson - by their children.