All you really have in the end are your stories.

That's a big responsibility, and the details obsess me. And, also, I no longer feel I have to do the Tonight Show every time I open my mouth. Twenty years ago, I told myself I'd rather direct than act, and it's taken me this long. You lose your passion in acting. You make too many mistakes. Maybe that's why I make so many movies; if you don't like this one, another one's opening on Tuesday. But then I spent six months of my life on 'At Long Last Love,' a picture nobody saw. I enjoyed making it, I learned from it, I grew, but that's too much time out of my life.

Women are my drugs and alcohol. When I'm involved with one woman, I'm involved with one woman. Period. But between romances, I am carnivorous.

I'm paying the third highest alimony and child support in the world. And the only two ahead of me are sheiks.

Smokey and the Bandit was the first picture [Hal Needham ] directed, and I knew he could handle it. I had just directed Gator, and he saw my style and used that as a pattern.

You get to a certain age, where you know you can't go over the wall, but I'll never get to the age where I can't go through it.

I had an Indian Scout motorcycle during high school, but I never could take it to school. My dad would sneak out at night and pull the spark-plug wires.