Big movies are fun and it`s great to fly on private jets and make a lot of money and all the things that are connected with Hollywood, but they take a lot of your own life.

It's important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it's a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.

Once is more than generous for any lifetime.

I learned a long time ago that place matters to me, on many levels, and maybe more than it should, but it is generally counter-productive for me to resist it.

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances.

Mark Twain is a voice of truth and a voice of equality and a voice of tolerance. Which means he is a voice of love.

I don't think of my life as a cliche, but I'm a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name - I mean, who's named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?