Action is always seen as the bottom rung of thespian endeavour, that's just the way it is.
— Sylvester Stallone
If you don't have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.
I was an ambitious child and I tended to be scatterbrained. If I was at school and saw a bird outside the window I wanted to follow it. I was adventurous.
I made some truly awful movies. 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot' was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes.
There's no one in the world close to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is a phenomenon. He's brilliant. Just because his physique belies that, don't underestimate him.
You have to be really loyal to the people that supported you when you were coming up.
I'm not a genetically superior person. I built my body.
Once is a man's life, for one mortal moment, he must make a grab for immorality; if not, he has not lived.
Rambo isn't violent. I see Rambo as a philanthropist.
Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.
Suddenly I've got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.
I think that's become passe, but if you can surround yourself with a kind of monument to yourself and your family - a statement - and you can afford it, then that's a noble project.
I have two lovely sons and some good memories, but I've had a rather tumultuous personal life. It hasn't been dull; I've been the Hiroshima of love.
I love being verbal in films.
I've kind of fashioned my life after a Slinky. Bend me in a million shapes, and eventually I'll spring back to what I originally was.
I never quite understood these actors - though I envy them sometimes - who can lie out for a year or two. I feel as though time is a real pressing issue, and I want to get as much work done in the time that I have left.
It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful.
I loved 'Rocky' and 'Rambo', and am very proud of them.
I think audiences have hit the wall with CGI and special effects. They have seen so many over-the-top events that they can't suspend disbelief.
In a contest between me and a bulldog, you would say the bulldog is cuter.
I'm pretty spiritual; I believe a lot in the spirit of man.
I was on cruise control from '85 to '95, and it was my fault. There were a lot of self-inflicted wounds, when I was not doing any original material. I wasn't directing. I wasn't writing. That's not who I am.
You've got to show your soul otherwise you're just a piece of equipment.
I'm not right wing, I'm not left wing. I love my country.
Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.
When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.
I'm more focused and have a greater sense of challenge, because I constantly feel the weight of time.
I was very much into buying contemporary art, but I've just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it's not great art, but all of a sudden my mood has changed, and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.
If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there'd be bodies hanging from every tree!
I have a lack of fear, whereas in the past the fear of failure was a powerful motivator. Anyway, I have great expectations for the future, but I just don't know if I'm the monarch of all I survey.
Most action is based on redemption and revenge, and that's a formula. Moby Dick was formula. It's how you get to the conclusion that makes it interesting.
When I tried to branch out into comedy, I didn't do very well at it, so I went back to doing what I do naturally well, or what the audience expects from me - action pictures.
I've been involved in something which was chaotic and insane. All I can say now is that I am, and intend to stay, a single man.
I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.
People think retiring is fun. Well, maybe, but if you have a certain kind of fire inside, there is no end in sight.
When you're an actor, you're a slave to other people's visions.
When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn't expect me in comedies or musicals.
For every guy, there is an opportunity to be a lot better than he thought he could be. We can't all be the star of the team, but we can be a star in our life. That's where you set your goal.
From the time I got dressed in the back of a deflated, flat-tired, fish-smelling station wagon for Rocky. It's always been do it yourself, kind of like paper-clip it together.
A lot of guys have muscles. A lot of strong men in this world. I think it's important to show that even under all this strength there's a fragile side, a side that can be affected.
I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.
I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.
I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.
When you're on top and you lead the parade, everyone's there throwing lilies and lilac water on your head. But when those parades have gone by and there's a storm in your heart, there are very few people that are going to sit there and listen to you bemoan life.
What I'm trying to do now in my life - not just with the building, but with everything - is to construct things that will have enduring qualities, and won't just be ephemeral flashes in the pan.
I'm a patriot of the heart.
I have great expectations for the future, because the past was highly overrated.
I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.
I think everyone has a certain kind of formula in their life. When you deviate from that formula, you're going to fail big or you're gonna win big.
Like I said, I've got too much respect for women to marry them, but that doesn't mean you can't support them emotionally and financially.
