Quotes from Robert Duvall

Seeing your name on the list for KP or guard duty when you're in the Army is like reading a bad review.

I like to do things that I develop from the ground up.

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.

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.

I love the smell of juice boxes in the morning.

I was fortunate in the last century to be in the two biggest hits film-wise, 'Godfather I' and 'Godfather II,' and 'Lonesome Dove.'

Hollywood is still the mecca for good or bad, but it isn't the beginning or end for filmmaking.

But for me, the challenge is how you turn a character into behavior. Once the director says 'action', you just try to live between those two worlds.

I love working in Texas anywhere.

If you don't have heroes in the beginning, you don't grow.

One thing I like about Argentina, they only cook with salt; that's it.

We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities.

I love going to black churches, and I love some of these black preachers. The best preacher I ever saw in my life was a 93-year-old in a black church in Hamilton, Virginia. What a preacher!

A young actor once asked me, What do you do between jobs? I said, Hobbies, hobbies, and more hobbies.

The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso's old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there.

But I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.

Spending two years on my uncle's ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.

What drives me is I love my profession. I love to do it.

We all have a cradle-to-the-grave journey to make and, in between, what do you do? There's got to be something hereafter.

You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.

Around my own friends, I like to mess around.

I try not to look for messages in films.

Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result.

I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.