In America most everybody who’s Italian is half Italian. Except me. I’m all Italian. I’m mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.

I’m so shy now I wear sunglasses everywhere I go.

When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I’d go home and act all the...

I don’t ever give my opinion. Opinions I have about anything are in my personal life.

Theater for me at one point was a lifestyle, too.

Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don’t believe me when I tell them. That’s how I saw myself, in comedy.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You’re in a conversation and everybody’s agreeing with what you’re saying – even if you say something totally crazy. You need...

Francis Ford Coppola did this early on. You tape a movie, like a radio show, and you have the narrator read all the stage directions. And then you go back like a few days later...

You need some insecurity if you’re an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven’t yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most...

Jamie Foxx does a good rendition of me. It’s a real gift, mimicry of that kind, the tonal thing. It’s sort of like having a talent for playing an instrument.

I’ve never cared for guns. In fact, when I did ‘Scent of a Woman’ I had to learn how to assemble one.

My first language was shy. It’s only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.

When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I’m going to do a big...

I used to wear disguises, like hats and false beards, just to walk around and avoid attention.

sometimes it’s better to be with the devil u know than the angel u didn’t know

Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We’ve been here 100 years. Isn’t Italian-American culture American culture? That’s because we’re so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.

My weaknesses… I wish I could come up with something. I’d probably have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. Maybe they’re the same thing.

Doing Shakespeare once is not fair to the play. I have been in Shakespeare plays when it’s not until the last two or three performances when I even understand certain things. In the old days...

I’ve always been in the theater. I’ve always gone to it. That’s been my way to cope. Early on in my career, I remember running – fleeing – to the theater as a way of...

Scarface – first you get the money, then you power and then you get the women

I don’t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians…it’s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it’s not who you love…a man, a woman, what have you…it’s the fact that...

You do get very tired sometimes, when you’re sitting around for hours in movies. You get depleted.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful – my personal life suffers.

It’s never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you – you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you...

All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don’t think I would be on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ mainly because I would be too...

We start to realize that there are anodynes in life that help us through the day. I don’t care if it’s a walk in the park, a look out the window, a good bubble bath...

I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.

It would be hard to play a character you don’t like – for me anyway – or can’t find something in them to like.

The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I’m talking about.

Most everybody who’s Italian is half Italian. Except me. I’m all Italian. I’m mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.

I’m an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.

I’d like to be remembered as the only man who lived to be 250 years old!

You’ll never be alone if you’ve got a book.

My grandmother always came to my shows. She was always concerned about the way I dressed – even later on, when I was well known and I supported her.

I like, for instance, ‘Serpico.’ I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could – I could embody him. I could, you know, I...

Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there’s a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff, or try out what I learned...

The Godfather, Part II.

Vanity is my favourite sin.

There are a lot of roles in Shakespeare, basically. If I feel that the script is a movie, I would be interested in doing any role of Shakespeare’s.

The truth is, you know, we need our anodynes. You know that word, anodynes? We need that in life some times. A good warm bath can be one for you, or a whatever.

I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters...

There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.

quality is higher, and the films we are choosing are ones that really found their audience in a massive way through DVD.

It’s easy to fool the eye but it’s hard to fool the heart.

I was not prepared for fame. It hit me hard, and I did not have the capacity to cope.

Shakespeare’s plays are more violent than ‘Scarface.’

I remember acting in a school play about the melting pot when I was very little. There was a great big pot onstage. On the other side of the pot was a little girl who...

At this point in my career, I don’t have to deal with audition rejections. So I get my rejection from other things. My children can make me feel rejected. They can humble you pretty quick.

He sees the gift, … He sees the real thing, and he’s very turned on by that. An old friend of mine used to say, ‘If I dig it, it’s mine.’ And I think with...