Sylvester Stallone Quotes

I've done my "mind over matter" movies, and I think probably that people aren't really interested in seeing me do that anymore. I think I'm kind of past my prime to do dramatic films. I think it'd become kind of like almost a pathetic cry out to be recognized as a serious drama actor.

Every generation has to find their own heroes.

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.

I think everyone has a certain kind of formula in their life. When you deviate from that formula, you're going to fail big or you're gonna win big.

Sometimes when I don't want to cry, I cry. And when I want to I can't. It's subconscious. Like sexual performance.

Painting is as close as a person can get to actually capturing the heat of the moment.

'Rocky' represents the optimistic side of life, and 'Rambo' represents purgatory.

Now it really is, believe it or not, 90% of the films are green lit, not by the studio heads, but by the marketing department.

Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are!

I know people get upset and go, 'They're going to take away the assault weapon'. But who needs an assault weapon? Like, really, unless you're carrying out an assault.

I learned the real meaning of love. Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but loyalty never fades. You can depend so much on certain people, you can set your watch by them. And that's love, even if it doesn't seem very exciting.

I think audiences have hit the wall with CGI and special effects. They have seen so many over-the-top events that they can't suspend disbelief.

Your spiritual sense will make you either a winner or a loser.

I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who beat the odds through just plain determination. ... that I persevered. Because I think that being somewhat of a pest to life, constantly plaguing and pursuing, will bring results.

There might have been a period around 'Tango & Cash' when I was nearly fashionable. My problem is that my weight's always been changing for the movies I'm in.

If you look at people that have survived crashing in the mountains and lived up in the snow for 40 days - it's possible to do extraordinary feats.

All young men want to prove themselves.

I have made a lot of career mistakes, a lot and I have made a lot of personal ones too!

In this day and age, if you're aspiring to be an actor, and you're putting all your eggs in one basket, you could be disappointed. 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 8 to 10 scripts were pretty horrendous, but I stayed at it until I eventually found a voice and a subject that people were interested in. So, I recommend that you go out and try to be as versatile as possible: writer, actor, producer and especially director.

I'm usually taken for a non-intellectual, a person of limited intelligence. I don't know why, but I figure it's because physically I don't look intelligent.

To be really artful, though, you have to be subjective and so singular.

The biggest and most interesting crisis in the world is the human crisis, and it never gets boring. It goes back to Shakespeare. You don't need a gimmick; it's just man against man and their intolerance of each other.

I respect a woman too much to marry her.

The only thing that I haven't done is perform brain surgery on myself. I've been very, very lucky. I've spared Shakespeare undue stress by not doing that.

Certain characters, mostly heroes, have to be the straight silent type; that is part of the make-up.

Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.

Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you're gonna have. It's pathetic. It really is pathetic. It's sad. We're living in the Dark Ages over there.

Eventually writing became more interesting to me than acting.

When crossing someone's borders you have to be prepared to engage in a war that is far more brutal than if it were to take place on neutral territory.

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.

We do two things in life: We race the clock and everything is a struggle. One way or not, it's a metaphorical battle all of the time.

Everyone has this conjecture that action films are somewhat less prestigious than dramatic films. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've done them both and this is hard and dangerous.

Clichés are what good writing is all about. Because our lives are basically clichés.

I've always boxed a certain way. But with Rocky, the character himself had to be kind of awkward. So I had to learn to fight that way.

Don't be gullible, use life before it uses you. Understand there are no free lunches, and for every action you take, there's a reaction.

If I'd succeeded right away at acting I wouldn't have sought out writing.

A lot of guys have muscles. A lot of strong men in this world. I think it's important to show that even under all this strength there's a fragile side, a side that can be affected.

It's funny because when Jason [Statham] was drowning I was filming with an iPhone. It may have been a bit insensitive but I just thought, "you know what, this was a magic moment". And I couldn't help him anyway because I didn't want to drown.

And if I look at my icebox, there's no way I'm sitting there looking like Gandhi. I mean, I don't have crickets in there and little green rice. No, I mean it's a pretty liberal icebox. It's all in there.

I keep trying to tell people. I said, at 40, 45, you're at that crossroads. You really are there. And it's not like you can have gain without pain, but this is it. The days are - like when I wrote this whole thing about, in the beginning of my first magazine. I said, "If you live to be 75 years old, that's 3,900 weekends. That's it."

It's great the way the old-time directors used to manipulate the hell out of you. You see someone dying and all of a sudden a ghost would come out and they go walking hand in hand up the stairway.

I have a lack of fear, whereas in the past the fear of failure was a powerful motivator. Anyway, I have great expectations for the future, but I just don't know if I'm the monarch of all I survey.

Today's action hero, his skills are through technology. He can fly, he can throw a bolt of lightning, he can freeze people.

Suddenly I've got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.

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.

I've been involved in something which was chaotic and insane. All I can say now is that I am, and intend to stay, a single man.

You've got to show your soul otherwise you're just a piece of equipment.

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.