Horseracing and ranch horses are two different animals. You're getting race horses out and running and running them. It can be really problematic. A thoroughbred's very delicate.
— Dennis Quaid
I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I grew up in Houston. Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut.
I was a late bloomer. I tried out for the football team, and I got locked off the field. That's how I wound up in drama.
A lot of people that I started out with, I don't know where they are. I guess it takes tenacity to still be doing this, and luck, but I've been very blessed.
I love to work. I actually enjoy it now more than I did when I was in my 20s. I don't know why, but I'm just grateful.
I don't know if I'd want to be a Secret Service agent. In the movies, it's exciting and romantic and all that. Really, most of their job is standing in a hallway for 12 hours making sure somebody doesn't come through a doorway off of a stairwell.
What I find is that we're all human beings and that it's all very similar, what we believe. At the bottom, there's really not that much difference between Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We all worship God.
I'm not really a pitcher; I just play one in the movies.
Athletes are sort of part of the community at large. They have to be dedicated to what they do, and go through lots of peaks and valleys. And there's a lot of training that goes into their careers. It's a struggle. Very dramatic.
There are three things being a celebrity is good for: raising money for charity, dinner reservations and tee times.
I've had varying luck with comedy in the past, but I'd really like to give that another go. I don't know if I'd chase down a part, but if the right thing came along I could certainly see myself stepping into that zone.
I guess I could say I'm an actor, which I am, but that sounds like I'm putting down being a movie star, which, let's face it, is what I've become to many people. For myself, I'm a guy who was very insecure from about age 14 until the day I hit my 30th birthday.
I look for a good story. Usually the best stories are the ones that are unbelievably true. 'Soul Surfer' is one of those stories.
I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way.
When I was in my mid-20s, I traveled a lot around the world, and the question I had for everyone I talked to was, 'What is your conception of God?' I found that everybody basically felt the same: God is within and without. He's in everything.
When I get a script, it's the only time that I get to be an audience member with the first-time experience of that movie. That's the first and only time.
I don't see how it's a risky thing to take a great part with a great director and a great script. That, to me, is not really a dangerous, risky proposition. It's actually a really good choice.
I love politics, but I wouldn't want to be involved in it. Too little money, too much work! I don't really have the personality for that.
It's about... my only strategy I've ever had in my career is to do as many different types of roles as possible, as many different types of genres. It keeps the fire in my belly.
Going to the golf course every day for work? That's a good job.
I would like to work with Todd Phillips of 'The Hangover'. I would like to do more comedies; it would be a lot of fun. No actors in particular. I don't consciously seek out things to do.
If I've done anything intentional about my career, is that I really have not - I've chosen to try to do as many different types of things as possible. That's really what I like to do.
Your partner has to live with the best and the worst part of you, and they're affected by it.
Families need a spiritual bond with one another and with God. God is the only way you're going to make it in life, the glue that holds everything together.
I was a really avid bowler when I was a teenager. I had about a 210-220 average. I had blisters on my fingers.
I was a guy back in the Eighties who was one movie away from a huge career, which at that time didn't happen. In the Nineties, I worked a lot, but it was kind of, 'Get out there and dig and find things.' Then I guess 'The Rookie' and 'Far From Heaven' were referred to as my comeback.
I directed a movie back in the '90s which had calf roping in it, and I got into it quite a bit back then.
When I choose a movie, I'll ask myself: 'Is this a movie I want to see?'
I have a ranch in Montana, but it's not a real working ranch. I've always liked the outdoors. I come from Texas. My grandfather was a farmer; that's as close as I come.
Playing Bill Clinton is really, probably, the scariest time of my career.
I love politics, but I wouldn't want to be involved in it. Too little money, too much work!
In my early teen years, I wanted to become a vet. That was my plan. I worked as a veterinarian's assistant for a couple of summers.
In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It's really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think.
I really want to see the Cubs in the World Series. I really do.
Clinton knew how to get things done. He was battling the Republicans, and then he basically took a lot of their agenda and made it his own. That's what Obama's not doing.
I always want to find the best burger in town.
I learned to surf for 'Soul Surfer.' Surfing is like golf: You're always battling, and it keeps knocking you down. There are a lot of wipeouts. But when you stay with it and catch that wave, you really taste it. It's magic.
Movies usually find me, but I'm open to anything.
Family is the most important thing in life, period.
You don't bad-mouth your ex or anything like that. The key is your kid knowing that both parents still love him and are there for him.
It's great to get paid for what you love doing most. To enjoy your work. And to follow that. It's important.
My real-life athletic career was not very much. I played Little League baseball.
I love being a dad. Basically it's the most gratifying, rewarding relationship in life. But, at the same time, it certainly is the most challenging.
'Legion' was a lot of fun to shoot. It was a real unique apocalypse scenario that takes place in a diner out in the desert. Very much like a drive-in B-movie, but in a good way.
I owe the little formal education I got to my drama teacher, Mr. Pickett, who got us to read Shakespeare, Moliere, and other classics.
For many years, I was obsessed about what I was eating, how many calories it had, and how much exercise I'd have to do.
I have always done my own stunts, and I have been in hundreds of fights in films, but I have never been in a fist fight outside the movies.
I spent a weekend in the White House with President Clinton, back in '99, I guess. We played golf and just hung out and talked on many subjects. I saw him several times subsequently in L.A. He's the smartest man I ever met, a great politician. Everybody was star struck around him.
Wall Street has come to America's heartland, really. The only thing missing are the skyscrapers, you know?
I still have my original love for acting. That's why I feel so lucky. I think that's what sustains me in the sort of leaner times.
