Val Kilmer quotes:

Warner Bros offered me the next Batman, and the only reason that I didn't do it was because of The Saint.

Mark Twain had a way of telling stories that shifts your consciousness away from labels.

Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal.

Life is precious, and when someone dies it's an opportunity to realise how precious it is. My brother drowned when I was 17. He was 15. I think I grew from that. My father didn't. It really crushed him.

Mark Twain had a way of telling stories that shifts your consciousness away from labels."

Warren Beatty once told me that if someone's really stuck on you, find them their next boyfriend. But I could never do that.

Postman is a media analyst and his theory is that television doesn't influence our culture, but that it is our culture and the presidency and anything that relies on television.

My father was raised in the mountains of New Mexico, and he picked cotton for a dollar a day. He was working for the family from the time he was 7.

If you think that by threatening me you can get me to do what you want... well, that's where you're right. But - and I am only saying this because I care - there's a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.

There was such a relationship between the buffalo and the American Indian - the Indians would eat them, live inside their pelts, use every part of the body. There was almost no separation between the people and the animals.

The Secret Service is a strange group. They don't really have a leader. It's not set up like a military. Each one is supposed to be able to act like a leader when something comes up.

Unless a Western's made money - doesn't matter who made the money, doesn't matter what the subject is - if the last one didn't make any money, you can't make another one for a four-year period. Westerns more than any genre.

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is."

My children have absolutely no interest in my fame. They're very sophisticated, and they have a spiritual perspective on material things because we go to church.

The first play I saw was a Samuel Beckett play which was great.

I don't watch television, but I saw 'The Office' by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We'd do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I'm sitting there watching hours of it.

Partly because the town is just finicky, there are strange Catch 22 clauses in the consciousness of this community and one of them was that you, I found out, you can't do a comedy unless you've just done a comedy.

I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered.

We take what's shown on television as the truth, and it isn't. News isn't even the truth on television. If you look up the definition of what news is, it isn't that what we're watching on the new - it's entertainment.

There are a thousand ways to play any role.

I live on a ranch that's larger than Manhattan. That's a weird circumstance.

A lot of old guys in movies are like cowboys - they talk like cowboys and they dress like cowboys.

Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things.

It's the first time that I've ever had an art show based on a film, but it's a photography collage.

It's a really weird thing, modern divorce. I found out I was getting divorced on television. That was kind of weird.

There's nothing good about divorce.

One out of 100 citizens of the U.S. is going to prison, and it's not that the system is making criminals, it's that it's making criminals better criminals. We're breeding them like rats and it has to change.

News is something that happens that matters to you, which is not most of what we watch on television.

The good reviews that people have told me about through the years haven't really helped me do my job. So it's kind of like, if your hair turns out right you want to go out, you don't just want to stay in and look in the mirror. That's kind of what reading a review is like to me; it's like reveling in something that's just one night.

I'm a character actor, but I look like a leading man.

It may or may not sound pretentious. But I`ve turned down, consciously and specifically, many jobs I knew would have been a pretty surefire way to go about making a lot of money, being recognized and gaining power in the industry.

Daryl Hannah likes to goof around with fashion, but she does have pretty impeccable taste.

I think spiritual perception comes from natural and healthy relationship to the land and I`ve had that. I get an easy, automatic sense of myself in nature, a wholeness and I feel nowhere else. I think people should live where praying is most immediate. That`s why I live in New Mexico. The physical terrain, the feeling, the environment and culture improve my life just by waking up there.

Jim Thompson understood something about the serial killer before the psychology caught up to it, which is that they are detached to it and they do want to get caught.

Art is a way to get strength from something that is life-affirming. It can be quite violent and still be life-affirming.

My first girlfriend in high school, I had a girlfriend in grade school, but my first girlfriend in high school was Mare Winningham, very fine actress.

I liked being Doc Holliday. It's fun to be insightful and aristocratic, to stand up for your friend and make sacrifices for him. It was fun to be arrogant like he was and have the goods to back it up. He was a very noble character. Although, let's not forget, he did kill a lot of people.

It's the persona that makes you a leading actor. A leading actor has something extra that's fun to watch. But it isn't usually about acting.

Big movies are fun and it`s great to fly on private jets and make a lot of money and all the things that are connected with Hollywood, but they take a lot of your own life.

New Mexico is my home. It has never been anything but home. The ranch has rivers and canyon, everything imaginable. I can ride, hunt and fish. At the same time, ranching is grueling, difficult work. It`s like acting, to be successful at it, you have to work hard. I take it very seriously.

Hollywood's like a warehouse. It's just a place that you go. What's interesting in the warehouse has to do with the creative people.

There was no one around called 'Val' when I was young, so I wanted to be John or Bill. Now I like it.

I don't think of my life as a cliche, but I'm a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name - I mean, who's named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?

There are only three reasons to do a movie: the cast, the director, the role. Like I say, you live in a minute of screen time, but to prepare for the minute takes much more than a day. You`d better be excited about what those moments are, even if they`re the hardest moments. Or the smallest.

Mark Twain created a new type of literature and not a lot of people can say that. Not a lot of people can say they're absolutely original and completely self-made.

My only challenge is to entertain. And I accomplish my task better when I myself am entertained by what I am doing. I am very critical of myself, I constantly set the bar higher and higher. I try to surpass myself. That`s all. But I also know how to preserve myself, to not let myself get bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors.

It was very serious and I wanted to do something really different so there was this comedy called TOP SECRET.

I was in love with Tina Goodman since I was three and her parents came popping out of the trash cans. I think it made a big impression on me.

Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic.

Most films made about the future acquiesce toward death, and I don't want to be told how to define my future.

Youth is seen as everything. You don't know anything when you're young. It's great being older, just having a more balanced perspective. I wake up and realise that what seemed to be important last year no longer is. I'm increasingly grateful for every day.

I'm going to put a museum on my ranch and people keep saying, 'That's a huge idea.' Yeah, it's big, but not bigger than the average big movie. A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything. That's maybe a big gallery's total sales for a given year.

It's fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren't actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n' roll. I've listened to 'Ziggy Stardust' as much as any rock n' roll fan - I don't really know what it's about, but it sure is fun to think about David Bowie as this mad creation.

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is.

If you're in a hit movie, it's good to be in another hit movie straight away.

You just don't understand humility until you have children and get divorced.

When you're young, you're always concerned about how you're being seen and how you're being criticized.

Why do women get paid less money? It doesn't make any sense.

A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything.

A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time.

Acting is not a science. Anybody who believes that their success exists in relation to their goals is deluding themselves; unless you think of a career in terms of financial goals. I have nothing against Tom Cruise, but he must have a large capacity to deal with the business side of movies.

Acting is very immediate.

Being creative and making money in the theater is very challenging.

Do what you like to do so well that someone will pay you wages for it.

Doing my first movie, I realized I could get into real bad habits. If you`re the star, all you have to do is show up, and 20 people say, `Do you want anything? What is it? Let me get it for you.` Believe me, you get spoiled very quickly. I saw some of my contemporaries allow themselves to have that fame, thinking they could handle it. It messed them up.

Everything in high school was reversed. If marijuana was supposed to make you mellow, I would be like, "The cops, the cops, the cops . . ." I was what you call the buzz kill.

Give me the compliments. I love compliments. I was born modest, but it wore off.

Gregory Peck was so charismatic. I saw a woman fall down - fall down! - when she saw him in a restaurant. And Brando. We were in London, and by then he was about 380 pounds. There was a gorgeous waitress, and off he went, in direct competition with me for this young girl's attention, speaking French, making her blush.

Hollywood is wonderful, but it does eat its young.

I can safely say that no one who has ever won an Oscar didn't want to win an Oscar.

I don't believe in death. I think it's just a state of mind.

I don't make any pretense about being normal. I'm not.

I fell in love with the land and with the very old fashioned idea of leaving a physical legacy for my children. A stunning place, with a magnificent forest of trees, and a magnificent river.

I have never taken my career seriously. My only ambition was to grow as an actor.

I have two children and they're young yet but all of the children that I know really inspire me.

I just don't think I've ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity.

I learned a long time ago that place matters to me, on many levels, and maybe more than it should, but it is generally counter-productive for me to resist it.

I love acting, and doing it well matters to me.

I love that Bob Dylan asked me to be in the first movie he wrote.

I never cultivated a personality. Almost everyone who is really famous has cultivated a personality.

I probably complained more when I was younger. The movie industry can be frustrating but I think sometimes I could have been more helpful, approaching a film as a partnership rather than being critical of a director`s ignorance. I wasn`t sensitive to the fact that it`s very hard to direct.

I respect people who can do both careers, like Will Smith and a couple of other people who have done it, but I just don't know when they sleep.

I sang the songs in 'The Doors'.

I saw the horizon. It's out there. And though I may not ever be able to touch it, it's worth reaching for.

I think death is just a transition to another state of consciousness.

I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I've played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters.

I was looking for projects, as you always are, and I read this scene . . . and I'm in the Hollywood Hills. So I thought, 'This is interesting.' You have this setup that seems to be based in some reality and you can only wonder where Black's going to go with this.

I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates when he said...I drank what?

I went to public school in L.A., so I felt like I'd been in a coma for three years. I woke up, and moved to New York.

If you know where your spiritual center is, and you neglect it, peace will always allude you.

If you look up the definition of news in the dictionary, it isn't what you watch on TV.

If you play Mark Twain and he's not funny, you are definitely not playing Mark Twain. That was the biggest challenge, in some ways. Writing and performing jokes that can come out of that brilliant delivery system he constructed: the friendly, avuncular truth-teller.

I'm a better person when I'm preparing for a role, when I'm studying a role.

I'm fairly sure I didn't show enough gratitude to my employers, and I'm sorry for that.

I'm not just an actor born in L.A.. I was born in the Griffith Park Hospital. You can't get any more clichéd than that.

I'm very wary of news on television.

In order to be an artist and an actor, like tackling the classics in the theater as well as film, there's lots of discipline, lots of work, physical work put in.

Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me. I play these guys, but I'm not like them. I've been accused of bein.

It hurts. I miss my kids. I miss my kids in so many ways that I can`t explain.

It is a weird thing that actors have people applaud when they're done working. I still find that entertaining.

It looked like it might not work out with Michael Keaton, so they asked Joel Schumacher, `Who do you want for Batman?` When he said me, I asked my agent, `Why? Who did they not get?` I`d met with Joel a couple of times before about other (movies). I didn`t know anything in terms of the cast, story or anything, but I said, `Sure, sounds like fun.` - On accepting his role as Batman.

It seems to me that every step forward in my life has been one that brings me to a better understanding of this: that you do your thing every day the best that you can, and you approach any success at it with humility.

It sounds corny to say, but the theater is sacred; something transcendent can occur, and when it does, everyone grows. It's a true communion.

It`s always been the same for me. I`ve always enjoyed acting, and I really love good actors; they`re such unique characters. I wish I could tell stories well, or tell a joke. Any time someone can do that it`s so satisfying. Sean Penn, for instance, is a really good actor, and he can tell a good joke or story. But it`s hard to do. Most actors have special talents that make them attractive, but they`re often odd characters.

It`s probably fair to say I have taken myself too seriously on some jobs. I`m sure I`m more guilty of being difficult than I`d like to remember. I don`t regret my desires; I`ve regretted the way I would communicate my desires. Maybe I`ve lost a job because of some rumor, I doubt it. But nobody good that I`ve worked with has ever said anything negative about me, because we`ve never had a negative experience. By good, I mean directors who do their homework, people that are passionate, crazy, never sleep, and do like I do and just go after it.

It's important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it's a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.

I've found that Hollywood's a really honest business. They don't pull any punches. They tell you exactly what you want-I want the fake breasts and the flat car and the big pool. You know, they're real up-front about it.

Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard.

Mark Twain is a voice of truth and a voice of equality and a voice of tolerance. Which means he is a voice of love.

Mark Twain was an artist working at the highest level. He wrote a book, his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that put America on the world stage for literature. It's almost as if, if you start reading that book as a racist, you cannot finish it and still be a racist.

My only "business plan" was to get lucky.

My perception is that I've never done anything but work really hard.

Once is more than generous for any lifetime.

Performing in a live theater is absolutely unbeatable. It is something I have done my entire life and have a gift, it seems, for sharing thoughts live.

So it`s always helped me to have a foundation, an ideal to strive for and goals. It`s hard for me to be disciplined and plan things.

Sometimes, I wonder what I'm doing back in Los Angeles, but when you look out there... How can you complain when you see a whale cresting, matter-of-factly, as you make your breakfast?

That's the joy of art - it should be dangerous and challenging but it's just art - it's safe.

The audience and I have an intimacy that is, I believe, rare, most times out.

The only time it`s ever like work is when you don`t like what you`ve done. I`m very lucky in that I haven`t cultivated fame. Which, from what I`ve seen of my contemporaries, takes an enormous amount of time. I have a lot of respect for people that do it and they`re successful at it ... Especially people that aren`t such talented actors.

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances.