I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

I enjoy painting. I don't know if I'm good at it, but I paint. I paint very quickly.

I just remember Kathy Bates getting on the stage and "The Oscar goes to Anthony Hopkins." I looked around, because I really thought Nick Nolte would get it. I really thought Nick would get it. I was very surprised. It was neck and neck with Nick Nolte and myself. So I really was expecting that to happen, and I went in there without any expectations.

People forget that Mozart wrote for commissions. There's a thing in psychology where they think if it's popular, it can't be serious.

I never make conscious decisions. If my agent says to me, "It's a good script," I'll do it. I don't plan. I've got a lot of things to do. I'm at the roulette table and my luck seems to be running at the moment. I might as well stay there until it runs out.

We're just blades of grass, and when we go, we go, we never come back; one life . . . maybe that's true. But I tend to believe that this is not all there is. Because my life has been like a shadow of something deeper. And I've experienced that many times.

I love to read, and so I've been reading everything I can, not intensely, but I love to read so I read "Origin of Species" by Darwin and I can't make head or tail of E=MC squared by Einstein, but I try to baffle my way through that.