I never saw myself as a director. It's certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.

The fruit falls off the tree. You don't shake it off before it's ready to fall.

Our life is looking forward or looking back, that's it. Where is the moment?

I once asked my oldest daughter [Julia Marie] if she thought about changing her name in school and she said, "No, I'm a Pacino. That's my name." I just wondered how it would feel, how people would treat her, but she's adjusted so marvelously.

You'll never be alone if you’ve got a book.

I'm an actor, and everything about me - the way I perceive things, the way I have seen the world - has been in relation to characters and how I would want to play something or not play it.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying - even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.