“Stage is much more intimidating than going before the cameras, because you can really screw up, and can't do a retake.”

“It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.”

“Love can really screw you up before you figure out how to live with it. And once you do? You wonder how the hell you ever lived without it”

“Glad you're back to normal. The makeup and the dress were a lot more intimidating than the dagger."
"Get going, Sparky, before I skewer you."
"Sparky?”

“I have always felt that the camera hasn't liked me. I'm a stage animal. I have to be big and loud, and the camera needs you to be small and naturalistic and subtle; much more naturalistic. I'm as subtle as a buffalo stampede.”

“You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.”

“Anyone can be crazy. That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

“I can't screw up Alabama… We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere.”

“I have to dedicate myself. Do you understand? I don't feel conflict in myself because if I do, my work doesn't go well. If there's conflict I have to sit down or go to sleep to solve it. And the only way to solve the problem is to produce really affirmative work which can only come – I can't make it come. I can't conjure it up. I can only go to sleep and hope it happens... You have to digest it and if you digest you can contribute.”

“When you screw up someone’s life, the least you can do is leave the person alone.”