Quotes from George Clooney

Directors are the captains of the ship, and it's your job as the lead actor to make sure that the rest of the cast understand that by doing whatever he says.

I grew up in the world of bad television, on my dad's sets and then as a young schmuck on dating shows and so on.

You have only a short period of time in your life to make your mark, and I'm there now.

I don't like to share my personal life... it wouldn't be personal if I shared it.

As you get older and ease your way into being a character actor you have to be comfortable with where you are in life and career, and I'm very comfortable with what I'm doing - working on projects I'm proud of.

I'm not out trying to prove anything. I'm sort of finished with that, so I get to play in other sandboxes and try and figure out what I like and I'm interested in.

One of my favorite films is 'Big Fish,' which I think is a masterpiece.

It's very easy for people to be critical of President Obama's first term, but let's face it, he didn't exactly inherit the country in the best shape.

Honestly, as you can imagine, it really isn't all that fun directing yourself, running back and forth to the monitors to see if you're terrible or not.

I had a Tesla. I was one of the first cats with a Tesla. But I'm telling you, I've been on the side of the road a while in that thing.

You learn from the mistakes you make and from the mistakes other people make. The truth is, you don't learn from success; you learn from failure.

An acting career usually has about a shelf life of ten years before people get sick of seeing you. It's a good thing to have a job to fall back on and I really do enjoy directing.

Both of my grandparents died of lung cancer. So I got quite a lesson in the payback later in life of smoking, and if you keep it up how bad it can be.

Having 'Oscar winner' on your tombstone is a great thing.

I don't know if winning at any cost is wrong or not. There are times I've thought that the end justified the means.

Whatever you do, don't wake up at 65 years old and think about what you should have done with your life.

If you're famous, I don't - for the life of me - I don't understand why any famous person would ever be on Twitter.

I've been my most happy and my most unhappy in relationships. I have family and friends and people I care very much about. I've got a really, really, really good life.

I'm so lucky to have been raised the way I have, because my parents believed that everyone had the right to their own feelings, opinions, and existence; as long as they weren't harming others, you had to defend those rights.

My father ran for Congress in 2004, and I got a sense that there is no way to achieve much success without a certain amount of compromise.

I was in a bar and I said to a friend, 'You know, we've become those 40-year-old guys we used to look at and say, 'Isn't it sad?'

Who would name their kid Jack with the last words 'off' at the end of the last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up.

I use my film-making to work through my deep questions and my deep problems. I think I could watch each film and tell you exactly which part of my psyche I'm trying to work out.

Most of the time, I'm working in places I'm not familiar with. Sometimes it's Slovakia, and sometimes it's Hawaii. Not to bash on Slovakia, but I really did enjoy Hawaii.