“I think that if you get too close to the character, if you do too much historical research, you may find yourself defending your view of a character against the author's view, and I think that's terribly dangerous.”

“You don’t have much time. If you think too long or too much, sometimes that is wrong. If you have one idea and know it from the first minute, do it. Shoot. I had so little space in the box. Think too much, the defender comes to block you.”

“She looked at me. Looked away. “You think too much of me.”
I smiled. “Perhaps you think too little of yourself.””

“Take a serious look at yourself. Ask yourself questions about your mood, the way you view the world and people, think about your mistakes and the dangers they unleash. Today the character of a person determines whether he can exercise influence and authority, far more than all the minds on this earth. As you know, this is all the more true in Belgium, and Belgians want to see in their leader the qualities they will never want from themselves.”

“Don’t judge others who disagree with your views too harshly. You might just find yourself holding those same views a few years or decades down the line.”

“You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn?
I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.”

“I used to think that it was better to have too much than too little, but now I think if the too much was never supposed to be yours, you should just take what is yours and give the rest back.”

“If you want to do good research, it's important not to know too much. This almost sounds contradictory but really if you know too much and you get an idea, you will sort of talk yourself out of trying it because you figure it won't work. But if you know just the right amount and you get enthusiastic about your project, you go ahead, you do it and if you're lucky things'll work out.”

“The better you know your character, the more naturally it comes. But at the same time I don’t know that I ever want it to be easy, because the minute it gets easy I think I get too comfortable. And so I always am trying to search for what I can do to make my performance better”

“There's a rule, I think. You get what you want in life, but not your second choice too.”