You have not learned to live until you have learned to give

When I produced Spartacus, the writer was Dalton Trumbo, who spent a year in jail because he would not answer McCarthy's questions about other people. He submitted the picture under the false name of Sam Jackson.

I think that [Barack] Obama was elected because young people are starting to get interested in their country and I think that's a very healthy thing.

I directed two films, not very successfully, and after that, I went back to being an actor and a producer.

If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don't think I'd want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.

Unfortunately, once I did learn to smoke, I couldn't stop. I escalated to two packs a day very quickly, and stayed that way for about ten years. When I decided to stop, I adopted the method that my father had used when he quit. He would carry a cigarette in his shirt pocket, and every time he felt like smoking, he would pull out the cigarette and confront it: "Who stronger? You? Me?" Always the answer was the same: "I stronger." Back the cigarette would go, until the next craving. It worked for him, and it worked for me.

The only advantage I have found in being Jewish is that I can be openly anti-Semitic.