We were brought up in the school that teaches: You do what the script tells you. Deliver the goods without comment. Live it-do it-or shut up. After all, the writer is what's important. If the script is good and you don't get in its way, it will come off okay. I never discussed a script with Spence [Spencer Tracy]; we just did it. The same with Hank [Henry Fonda] in On Golden Pond. Naturally and unconsciously we joined into what I call a musical necessity-the chemistry that brings out the essence of the characters and the work.

What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin.

It's not what you start in life, it's what you finish.

Time is the stuff of which life is made.

If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.

I'm what is known as gradually disintegrating. I don't fear the next world, or anything. I don't fear hell, and I don't look forward to heaven.

Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating.