When you find the right components in your life, the right people, that gel with you, then you feel as though you're invincible. It may be a fallacy, but you at least feel as though you can take all that life has to dish out.

The men in Vietnam weren't allowed to fight the war with any kind of concern to win by the government. It was like a war of attrition.

The idea that boxing lends itself to cinema so well is because it's usually a morality play - good against evil, insecurity and triumph, fear strikes out, so the audience can really get drawn into the drama of it. Also, it was sensual and very primal. I think subliminaly we do two things - life is a fight, life is a struggle and we understand that from our early, early, early ancestors, and life is a race.

Real love is when you become selfless and you are more concerned about your mate's or children's egos than your own. You're now a giver instead of a taker.

People that spend time in a foxhole - they're never going to find that relationship anywhere else again... Everything else pales next to that. When you think about the Second World War vets - more than even the Vietnam vets - there's a brotherhood.

At the end of the day, 'Rocky' is a love story, and he could never have reached the final bell without Adrian.

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.