Sylvester Stallone quotes:

There's a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.

I want to turn my attention to movies about love relationships. Exploring the female psyche - there ought to be some interesting discoveries there. Love stories. If you do it right, people want to hear romantic dialog.

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.

The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end.

I have great expectations for the future, because the past was highly overrated.

My life has always been chaotic. 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.

When I was a kid, my mother used to feed me mashed-potato sandwiches, brussel sprout sandwiches; my brain cells were starving from lack of food. I'll eat anything. I'll eat dirt.

Years ago I was diagnosed with a condition, and my doctors prescribed human growth hormone and testosterone for its treatment. Under medical supervision, I have continued to use both medications.

For 'Rocky II,' I got a torn pectoral muscle, I got all beat up inside, I had to have an operation to splice things back together.

Life is more than sunglasses and hit movies. Reality - that's the main event.

I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.

Don't be gullible, use life before it uses you. Understand there are no free lunches, and for every action you take, there's a reaction.

When I'm doing a movie, I eat the same thing every day. For lunch, it's tuna salad or chicken salad and cole slaw. That's it. For dinner it's either veal and rice, fish and rice or steak and rice. It gets boring; boy, does it get boring.

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.

If you look at people that have survived crashing in the mountains and lived up in the snow for 40 days - it's possible to do extraordinary feats.

I have a fear of heights that borders on mania.

There aren't a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.

People that spend time in a foxhole - they're never going to find that relationship anywhere else again... Everything else pales next to that. When you think about the Second World War vets - more than even the Vietnam vets - there's a brotherhood.

I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism.

Painting is as close as a person can get to actually capturing the heat of the moment.

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.

Every morning, I crawl out of bed. I sit there and think, 'Do I really need this?' And I drag myself to the gym in my garage. It's not fun. I hate it. I work out alone. Weights.

People don't realize that when they 'throw out' their back, it's often because of weak abs. These muscles are essential for lower-back strength and good posture.

Now it really is, believe it or not, 90% of the films are green lit, not by the studio heads, but by the marketing department.

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.

Suddenly I've got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.

Once is a man's life, for one mortal moment, he must make a grab for immorality; if not, he has not lived.

Certain characters, mostly heroes, have to be the straight silent type; that is part of the make-up.

Jesus is the inspiration for anyone to go the distance.

I'll always have this blue-collar connection. 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.

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.

It took me a long time to be convinced that marriage was right for me because I've come from a long line of broken marriages. My parents divorced, and I had two broken marriages myself.

When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.

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.

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 know I can't play funny roles in movies. I tried, and it didn't work.

I just fight in my movies, never in real life.

In the movies, I kill guys with an axe. In real life, I can't control a nine-year-old girl.

I love art more than anything in the world except for my family.

When a parent loses a child, there is no greater pain.

I respect a woman too much to marry her.

Just because society says I'm old doesn't mean I am.

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.

A lot of women read male magazines. Of course, a lot of guys read female magazines, but they've got another issue to deal with. But a lot of women read men's magazines and think, 'Oh, this is what these guys are thinking? Studying up on the enemy here.'

When I'm on a location, I pick a restaurant that's close and private and eat all my meals there.

Today's action hero, his skills are through technology. He can fly, he can throw a bolt of lightning, he can freeze people.

If you express yourself too much, you're considered weak.

I'm pretty spiritual; I believe a lot in the spirit of man.

People think retiring is fun. Well, maybe, but if you have a certain kind of fire inside, there is no end in sight.

Every time I've failed, people had me out for the count, but I always come back.

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.

Clothing is the first step to building a character.

I try to combine in my paintings cinematic feeling, emotional feeling, and sometimes actually writing on the page to combine all the different elements of communication.

You are what you leave behind.

Once in one's life, for one mortal moment, one must make a grab for immortality; if not, one has not lived.

I could start a war in 30 seconds. But some countries spend 100 years trying to find peace. Just like good manners, peace has to be learned.

The body needs to rest. It needs a lot less exercise than you think.

The biggest and most interesting crisis in the world is the human crisis, and it never gets boring. It goes back to Shakespeare. You don't need a gimmick; it's just man against man and their intolerance of each other.

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.

Your brain is triggered to produce.

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

I'm always looking for a new challenge. There are a lot of mountains to climb out there. When I run out of mountains, I'll build a new one.

The world will never come together and say, 'We are one.'

Early on everyone should do, every time they do a big film, they should do a little film. It really does keep you grounded.

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.

Crunches are much more effective than regular sit-ups because they specifically target your upper abdominal muscles rather than your hip muscles. If you're not used to them, they can cause soreness a day or two later, but it's a 'cool' soreness. A badge of honor.

Art is the ability to communicate through an intermediary and to convey one's feelings through an isolated object. It's inspiration and incubation. Putting my subjective feelings into an objective form and then on to you for a subjective interpretation.

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.

The men in Vietnam weren't allowed to fight the war with any kind of concern to win by the government. It was like a war of attrition.

I consider myself something of a raconteur. I have a rather audacious sense of humour.

Making a movie is the same as an orchestra; it's moving all the different instruments and the sounds, the kinetic and the auditory and the visual all together. I'm probably the trombone.

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.

With writing, I think you have to be honest with yourself. I have a certain kind of writing; that is, I like to really embellish the human spirit. You have to write about something you have a feel for.

Boxing is a great way to vent. I don't know if there is a better way, I think for women too. There is something so primal about it and it's the best exercise in the world, even if you don't ever get in the ring.

Most of the films I myself like don't do very well. Every director, he has a choice, whether to go for subtlety and try to articulate every minute detail, or to go for the broad strokes and hope that the people will fill in between the lines. I tend to go for the broader strokes.

Voices are like fingerprints, from Cagney to Bogart. They never lost it. My voice is instrumental in categorizing me.

In a contest between me and a bulldog, you would say the bulldog is cuter.

Without love, loyalty, desires, passion, courage, dignities, faith, beliefs and all the other ingredients that go into making the human soul something so elevated that only God knows its limits, we are only shells bobbing aimlessly in a calm sea of mediocrity. ...And if you can figure that out, please write and explain it to me because you're a better man than I am.

I think people of all occupations, whether it's the camera - puller or the man who's doing the catering, they can identify with Rambo's frustrations, with the veteran's frustrations.

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.

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.

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 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.

Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.

If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there'd be bodies hanging from every tree!

I realized, the older I get, the more difficult life becomes. It's not easier, it's more difficult.

I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.

I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.

Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.

That's the hardest thing about doing sequels - you've lost the element of surprise.

Action is always seen as the bottom rung of thespian endeavour, that's just the way it is.

If you're gonna be a failure, at least be one at something you enjoy.

When you're younger you just want to go out and make your mark in the world and doing that, quite often, the people that you love the most and the people you should be closest to suffer from estrangement. I'd be gone nine months a year, so how do you know anyone? When you come home you are a stranger.

People assume that 'The Expendables' is old school, but it's only old school because that's the way I know how to make an action film. It's pretty real.

I learned the real meaning of love. Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but loyalty never fades. You can depend so much on certain people, you can set your watch by them. And that's love, even if it doesn't seem very exciting.

We're all expendable. We think the world's going to stop when a pope dies, or a king. And then... life goes on.

Boxing is a great exercise ... as long as you can yell "cut" whenever you want to.

Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you're gonna have. It's pathetic. It really is pathetic. It's sad. We're living in the Dark Ages over there.

I have tremendous respect for fighters and I always tell people that boxing in movies is one thing but when you get into the ring for real, even the worst heavyweight in the world is going to murder you. You've just got to appreciate the pain and the suffering and the glory and skill that goes into what they do. That's why I love the sport so much.

I guess the best thing I do of all is ride. Horsemanship, I have a natural flair for it.

Theater is like boxing - having the audience ringside. It's instant gratification. Or horrification.

I think kids growing up, if they were picked on and feeling inferior at 12, they're going to feel that way at 72. You just deal with it better. I'm serious.

There is an age-old proverb that really does hold true in every area of life - in relations between nations and right down to the most subtle and sophisticated or must unstable and unsophisticated relations between lovers - and it is this: they took "kindness" for "weakness."

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.

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.

My favorite snack would have to be Fritos, no doubt about it. Fritos and mayonnaise. I know. Really healthy, isn't it?

To know that the odds are so high that only through the perishing of your life will the minions survive, that's love. That's heroism.

I love being so tight on people in close-ups that the veins in their eyes look like the Mississippi River.

That's what Rocky is all about: pride, reputation, and not being another bum in the neighborhood.

Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but the loyalty never fades.

I thought marriage was tough. Golf's like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel! It's a psychological game that gets into your blood.

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can't change. After I die, I'll probably come back as a paintbrush.

The trouble with remakes is that people fall in love with the original. It's like peanut butter. If you try to change the taste of peanut butter, you're in trouble.

I think that gravity sets into everything, including careers, but pendulums do swing and mountains do become valleys after a while... if you keep on walking.

I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who beat the odds through just plain determination. ... that I persevered. Because I think that being somewhat of a pest to life, constantly plaguing and pursuing, will bring results.

Rambo isn't violent. I see Rambo as a philanthropist.

I thought I had reached a point in life where everything would be smooth. But it is not. It just gets more jagged and pitted and filled with turns that take you into the dark recesses of your mind. It never seems to get easy.

Polo is like tennis - you literally have to live it.

Movies are a collective art. Art by proxy.

I try to eliminate as much dialogue as possible, and I guess Rambo is my really best experiment with how to eliminate dialogue.