- Good-looking people turn me off. Myself included.
- I believe in a higher power. I've studied Eastern philosophies, and I've studied the Koran. We've devalued everything worth believing in. Now we're tearing into religion. A line should be drawn. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and The Da Vinci Code (2006) borders on that. I was glued to the book, but afterwards I thought, "Oh my Lord, now we're tearing into God and our faith". Are we going to be turning into a reality show, too? I certainly hope not.
- [in 2004, about his drinking] I made a conscious decision to break away from big films when I got alcohol out of my life. I had been sucked into the blockbuster, box-office mentality and it was destroying my sense of purpose in life. The loneliness of fame was messing with my head. Once you've been famous for a while and told your story, it can sound like a lie. You don't know what's true. It sounds like an article someone wrote rather than the essence of who you are.
- I have a great deal of faith in faith; if you believe something strongly enough, it becomes true for you. I would like to believe that my father is right here with me in this room and that he's my guardian angel, that there's life after death -- because if there isn't, why are we here? I don't believe that just flesh and bones can contain from the point of view of physics this very real recorded energy inside of us. Whether it's true or not, we need to believe it.
- [on having achieved some success with various anti-cancer treatments] I'm a miracle, dude.
- I'm still fine to work, I haven't changed - oh, I have changed, what am I saying? It's a battle-zone I go through. Chemo, no matter how you cut it, is hell on wheels.
- [on accepting a continuing role in the series The Beast (2009)] How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you're a dead man? You go to work.
- Five years is pretty wishful thinking ... two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it. (January 2009)
- My big regret is the physical damage I've done to my body. I can do almost anything physically and I used to believe I was invincible, breaking bones over and over, playing football, doing gymnastics, diving, ballet, doing my own stunts, kickboxing, staging fights ... It all seems a little stupid to me now.
- [on having terminal cancer] I've had more lifetimes than any 10 people put together, and it's been an amazing ride...So this (dying) is O.K.
- Facing your own mortality is the quickest way possible to find out what you're made of. It strips away all the bull -- and exposes every part of you, your strength, your weaknesses, your sense of self, your soul. It also leads you to confront life's hardest questions.
- [on shooting Dirty Dancing (1987) with co-star Jennifer Grey] She'd slip into silly moods, forcing us to do scenes over and over. We did have a few moments of friction...she seemed particularly emotional, sometimes bursting into tears if someone criticized her.
- Ooh, I don't know ... I will go so far as to say probably smoking had something to do with my pancreatic cancer.
- I've got ... priorities. It's just I've been dealing with one thing as it comes at time, you know ... in the ... order that it's trying to kill me. Will stopping smoking now stop anything, change anything? No. But, when it looks like I may live longer than five minutes, I'll drop cigarettes like a hot potato.
- I've seriously cut down. I was one of those dumb ones that started back in the Marlborough Man days whose - you know, it was cool. I'm a cowboy. But I'll tell you one thing. I will talk so hard core against, against smoking for kids. That's one reason I've never smoked in front of children.
- I got completely fed up with that Hollywood blockbuster mentality. I couldn't take it seriously any longer.
- Alcohol and the craft of acting is not a smart combination. You can turn yourself into an alcoholic if you start buying into the 'isn't life terrible' routine. Nobody gives you a shoulder to cry on because you seem to have so much - like money and fame. Alcohol breeds self-pity and I've resorted to it on and off throughout my life. But I kicked it by making other things more important.
- I had a lot of anger because I wasn't happy with the way I had been raised. Our mother made us feel that we were never good enough. If I did anything, I had to be the best because that's what my mother expected of me. It was hard to deal with.
- My treatments are working and I am winning the battle. I am juicing every day along with other treatments and all I can say is that it's working fine and really well. I'm a miracle, dude, I don't know why. (July 2008)
- Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease and from the moment I was diagnosed, I knew I was in for the fight of my life.
- Am I dying? Am I giving up? Am I on my death bed? Am I saying goodbye to people? No way. I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light.
- My mother was a perfectionist and she expected the same in her children no matter what we did. This was a double edged sword as her pressure implanted in me a burning desire to be the best at everything, but also led to near constant deeply rooted feeling of inadequacy.
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