I wanted to show I had balls at age 60. Just because society says I'm old, doesn't mean that I am. I'm pursuing happiness, even if it makes the people around me unhappy.

I don't fall into the physical manifestation of a man of letters. So I guess people assume the scripts are delivered to me under the door.

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.

You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church is the gym of the soul.

The phenomenal thing that happened to me is that I was able to create two memorable men: one is the ultimate optimist, Rocky, and then you have Rambo, the ultimate pessimist. You're going to always be remembered for them, no matter what you do.

I'm always looking for a new challenge. There are a lot of mountains to climb out there. When I run out of mountains, I'll build a new one.

There is an age-old proverb that really does hold true in every area of life - in relations between nations and right down to the most subtle and sophisticated or must unstable and unsophisticated relations between lovers - and it is this: they took "kindness" for "weakness."