Back Quotes

Back 20 years ago, I was recording with Bruce Springsteen, and his producer called me and said I had to be in the studio the next day to finish the sessions, and I couldn't. I had to be in court, in California. All this took like 10 years out of my life.

I took a little break - I was coming back to work and the last thing I was going to do was take a step backwards, so I knew that if I was going to take a feature it was going to have to be taking a step forward.

The clothes back in those days were made so much better than clothes are today. They actually took time to make clothes to fit a woman's body. Today they make clothes that fit sizes, so it stretches to fit this and that.

To actually put the time and energy into an album that would be better than Pull would be a hell of a lot of work, because I took that band really seriously, way more seriously than people took us. If you go back and listen to the records, you can hear it.

My relationship with Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm reaches far back into my childhood. I grew up with Grimm's fairy tales. I even saw a theater production of 'Tom Thumb' during Advent at the State Theater in Danzig, which my mother took me to see.

I took business classes as a back up but I made movies all the time. I would get my classes done in two days and then spend the rest of the time making my movies.

Pat Riley, Dave Checketts and Ernie Grunfeld - they brought the Knicks back to the glory days. It started with Rick Pitino. We took our first step with him, making the playoffs. When Pat came in we just kicked the door open.

I had some things I had to fix. It took me 14 years to do it. But it was never really fun back in the day to work with directors who were a lot older and were like authoritarian and talking to you like that.

I drew a picture on the back of a calendar in pencil. In those days they used to give out free calendars, I had no art paper, so I took whatever else I could.

We did experiments with the Boston Symphony for many years where we measured the angles of incidence of sound arriving at the ears of the audience, then took the measurements back to MIT and analyzed them.

So when my film career took off, I always felt like I was trying to play catch-up because I hadn't studied acting before. I didn't know how to manage money or my career. When I look back, I think I was a little bit shell-shocked.

It actually took me a year to learn how to play running back - to understand what they were doing defensively and then what our guys were doing every single play.

Our children were mostly brought up and educated in the Churchill suburb east of Pittsburgh. Each summer, we took them back to England for an extended period.

I don't even like to talk about it. I hated being a number and not merely because I was a very small one. I let them bellow at me for just as long as it took me to find enough pluck to bellow back at them.

It took a long time, but I have learned that you just can't take anything you want out of life without putting something back in exchange.

From the ship all things were taken out, so that the clothes which I took with me on my back I only had.

We've been back since July, but I spent some time with the family in the south of France over the summer. We rented a house with another couple and took it easy.

I thought I couldn't afford to take her out and smoke as well. So I gave up cigarettes. Then I took her out and one day I looked at her and thought: "Oh well," and I went back to smoking again, and that was better.

This was more of a cartoonish thing for me and it kind of took me back to SCTV, in a way, where the characters are just a little broader and you can have that kind of fun going a little over the edge.

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.

I didn't do drugs. It wasn't my thing. But the drink was terrible. Today when I look back, it's like I was another person. You could call it a coping mechanism, but that would be an excuse. I just drank too much.

If you are spending too much, you cut back on spending and you raise your revenues. And that's it.

That's how I like to do it with actors, have them really go for it and I'll tell them when it's too much. It's always easier to bring it back then to push it further.

The only way to know how much is enough, is to do too much, and then back up.

It's never too late to go out and get that feeling back.

Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.

Looking back you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life- and it was you. It is not too late to find that person again.

I have now taken a serious task upon myself and I fear a greater one that is in the power of any man to perform in the given time-but it is too late to go back.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

Way, way, way back I played a little bit, but I am definitely not a golfer. You know, it just takes too much time anyway during the course of the day.