Dann's favorite celebrity quotes

Thirty years of interviewing filmmakers yields a lot of great quotes. Here are my favorites:

"Greed."

Director Robert Altman on the greatest problem facing the motion picture industry

"There's nothing that's designed to make somebody feel more like a piece of meat than some chick coming up and saying, 'Take off your dark glasses so we can see your baby blues.' Am I supposed to look soulfully at them? Or do I give them just a peek, a flash? Really, it's such a ridiculous position to be put in. I said to one woman, 'Sure, lady. I'll take them off, if you'll let me inspect your gums.'"

- the late Paul Newman

"You have to remember everything you've created. But then comes a moment when it's all automatic pilot, where it all comes together and you don't have to think about it any more."

- John Travolta on creating a character

"It will be very hard to get out of Bond. It will be the pictures I do between Bonds that will color my career, that will give my career longevity after this franchise is over ... I will be stamped with this character for life."

- Pierce Brosnan on playing Agent 007

"I'd like to see (the films) go back to the books. I think (the films) need to be dirtier. I think that you should feel the man playing Bond could die at any moment. You don't feel that any more."

- Daniel Craig on how he would play James Bond if he got the role. He did.

"I couldn't sing. I couldn't get in the right key. I was so nervous I couldn't even get through the first line of the song. I kept starting over and over. Finally, they said 'Thank you!' It was a classic situation when you didn't even get through the song before they kicked you off the stage!"

- John Cusack on his audition for a Drury Lane Theatre musical before he became a star

"Great sex is why we're so happily married!"

- Terri Irwin, explaining her happy union with her late husband, Steve, alias the Crocodile Hunter

"You've got to see a picture twice! No way can you get it the first time. It's too complicated. I spent three years devising this picture. You're not going to get it in 90 minutes!"

- Mel Brooks, promoting his comedy "History of the World, Part 1"

"I have thought about punching people out. Sometimes, I've thought, 'Why don't I just act on that impulse?' But then, I've never hit anybody in anger. Hey! I've never hit anybody for fun."

- Hollywood nice guy Alan Alda

"My acting is atrocious, to say the least. But I've found that it's not acting that people are concerned about, it's your presence."

- Martial arts star Chuck Norris

"I feel better in my mind because I'm doing what God made me to do. He said, 'Go write books, Steve, and you'll be happy.' I'm happy now, and that has had an effect on my life and my relationship with my wife and kids and even my friends. I've always wanted to be a writer."

- Horror author Stephen King

"I compare myself to a good barn. You can have a good barn, and if you paint it, it looks a little better. But if you take the paint off, it's still a good barn."

- Country music icon Dolly Parton

"When I kissed her, I closed my eyes and thought about my pet dog, Dopey."

- Chicago actor Ken Wahl on co-star Bette Midler in "Jinxed"

"When you make motion pictures, each picture is a life unto itself. When you finish and the picture is over, there's an understanding, a realization that we'll never be assembled this way again. That these relationships are severed forever and ever. And each of these films is a little life."

- Hollywood legend John Huston

"I walked out of the theater and started crying. My wife asked me, 'Why are you crying?' I said, 'Because I can't do that.' I didn't know how he did it. I've never seen anything like that. It's like this feat, this Rodin sculpture to me. It's like hearing an opera singer and the tears go down your face because it's not human what they're doing. It's like sounds of heaven."

- Dustin Hoffman on Robert De Niro's performance in "Raging Bull"

"People are actually enjoying watching us growing older. We're not trying to kid anybody. We are playing on the fact that we are aging and getting a little weary running around in space. I'm not sure how much longer we can keep this up."

- Leonard Nimoy on the enduring appeal of "Star Trek"

"I'm the oldest pretty face around."

- Model-turned-actress Lauren Hutton

"Yes, I beat out all the other Japanese actors for this part. All of them. Mifune. Mako. Kawasaki. Suzuki. Mazda. Sony."

- Pat Morita on getting the role of Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid"

"Why? Why? Why?"

- New "A.M. Chicago" host Oprah Winfrey, in the Chicago Theatre screening room reacting to a scene from "Places in the Heart" when Danny Glover is driven out of town by white racists

"I am not an educated person. I didn't come up through a ballet company. I came up through burlesque. So I have a lot of inferiority feelings concerning my own lack of education, my entry into show business. I'm not a Baryshnikov. I'm not a Nureyev. I came up in vaudeville. Strippers. So I've always had these feelings. But I think they've also helped me."

- Broadway legend and movie director Bob Fosse

"Look at all the drug busts all over the country. There must be an audience there somewhere. My feeling is that if we're losing the war on drugs, let's do a movie for the enemy."

- Tommy Chong of Cheech & Chong fame

"I haven't got it right yet. My goal is to keep doing it until I get it right. I don't anticipate that to happen very soon, so you'll have to give me some more time, folks."

- Charlton Heston on his acting ability