What I'm trying to do now in my life - not just with the building, but with everything - is to construct things that will have enduring qualities, and won't just be ephemeral flashes in the pan.

Voices are like fingerprints, from Cagney to Bogart. They never lost it. My voice is instrumental in categorizing me.

You have to grab life by the throat and squeeze before it grabs you by your neck and breaks it. Own your destiny.

That's the hardest thing about doing sequels - you've lost the element of surprise.

When I'm doing a movie, I eat the same thing every day. For lunch, it's tuna salad or chicken salad and cole slaw. That's it. For dinner it's either veal and rice, fish and rice or steak and rice. It gets boring; boy, does it get boring.

Early on everyone should do, every time they do a big film, they should do a little film. It really does keep you grounded.

I started out as an actor, but I forced myself to be a writer, even though I wasn't very good at it and had never written. I don't think I ever passed an English course in my life. My first eight to 10 scripts were pretty horrendous, but I stayed at it, stayed at it, and stayed at it, until I eventually found a voice and a subject like Rocky that people were interested in.