"I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life – in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don't believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice."

"And may the last voice you hear be mine!"

"I'm going to be the best singer in the World, [...] the best singer that ever was."

"The only male singer who I've seen besides myself and who's better than me – that is Michael Jackson."

"If you possess something but you can't give it away, then you don't possess it... it possesses you."

"Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I'm honest."

"You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad — if you're indifferent, Endsville."

"I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living his life, and who had good friends, a fine family. I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually."

"If I had as many love affairs as you've given me credit for, I would now be speaking to you from a jar at the Harvard Medical School."

"What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can."

"In terms of my singing I have sometimes been asked how it all began, and it’s usually been a little hard for me to set the story down in any continuous narrative. From the days of my childhood I’ve been listening to sounds and singers, both colored and white, and absorbing a little bit here and a little bit there. Countless musicians of talent have helped. But it is Billie Holiday, whom I first heard in 52nd Street clubs in the early 1930s, who was and still remains the single greatest musical influence on me. It has been a warm and wonderful influence and I am very proud to acknowledge it. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last 20 years. With a few exceptions, every major pop singer in the U.S., during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius."

"I feel passionate about things. And I feel things deeply, and that's always the way I've been taught, right from the beginning, that the deeper you feel something the better the acting.....and then it's also the person you're playing. If you're playing someone who's upset or yelling, that's what you gotta do. That's the job."

"I remember watching Gene Hackman, or Robert Duvall. To just see them as actors. You think of them as these icons. But you see them mess up their lines, flub their lines, whatever, you just see the human being. But then when they're "in" it's totally about playing pretend. The game of it."

"I point back in the living room, back to the sideboard. I didn't fucking know there was a sideboard there!"

"Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success in life comes not from the ability to choose between the four presented answers, but from the rather more difficult and painfully acquired ability to formulate the questions. Page 28"

"The good causes of the Left may generally be compared to NASCAR; they offer the diversion of watching things go excitingly around in a circle, getting nowhere. Page 11."

"You cheated on your wife? You did it, live with it. You fuck little girls, so be it. There's an absolute morality? May be. And then what?"

"I find out whose fuckin' cousin you are, I'm gonna go to him and figure out a way to have your ass, FUCK YOU!"

"Patel? Fuck you. Fuckin' Shiva handed him a million dollars, told him sign the deal, he wouldn't sign. And Vishnu, too into the bargain."

"Patel?!?! Ravadahm Patel?!?! How am I going to make a living on these deadbeat wogs?! Where'd you get this from, a morgue? Oh come on! What's the fuckin' point?! What's the fuckin' point in any case!? I gotta argue with you? I gotta knock heads with the cops? I'm busting my balls, sell your dirt to two deadbeats; money in a mattress. I come back, you can't even keep the contracts safe. I got to go out and close them again. What the fuck am I wasting my time... Fuck this shit!"

"Then I'm over the fucking top and you owe me a Cadillac. And I don't want any fucking shit and I don't give a shit."

"You ever take a dump, made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours?"

"Or me lying in the... Let me tell ya... Lying in bed the next day, she brought me cafe au lait, she gives me a cigarette. My balls feel like concrete. Eh?"

"Cop couldn't find his fucking couch, the living room."

"[T]he job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it."

"We don't have to worry about making it interesting; all we have to worry about is getting rid of the pig."

"Before you can steal fire from the Gods you gotta be able to get coffee for the director"

"The art of the theater is action. It is the study of commitment. The word is an act. To SAY the word in such a way as to make it heard and understood by all in the theater is a commitment — it is the highest art to see a human being out on a stage speaking to a thousand of his or her peers saying, 'These words which I am speaking are the TRUTH — they are not an approximation of any kind. They are the God's truth, and I support them with my life,' which is what the actor does on stage."

"My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library."

"A society can neither advance nor improve without excess of disposable income. This excess can only be amassed through the productions of goods and services necessary or attractive to the mass. A financial system which allows this leads to inequality; one that does not leads to mass starvation. Page 10."

"The goal of the Left is a government-run country and that of the Right the freedom of the individual from government. Page 236."

"Where have you been, Shelly? Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Do you want to see the memos...? They're nuts... they used to call in every week [...] Did you see how they were living? [...] The people are insane. They just like talking to salesmen."

"A man should BE his job. You are FUCKED at yours."

"April to September it's me, it's no fucking Moss! Due respect... he's an order taker. Talks... oh, talks a good game. But look at the board, and it's me John. It's me."

"You are a shithead, Williamson. If you can't think on your feet you oughta keep your mouth shut."

"Get the chalk! Get the fucking chalk! Put me on the board! Put me on the Cadillac board! Williamson! Pick up the fucking chalk! Hey, Rick I closed em! I closed the cocksucker!"

"What the hell are you? You're a fuckin' secretary. Fuck you. That's my message to ya: fuck you and kiss my ass, and if you don't like it baby I'm going across the street to Jerry Graff, period, fuck you. Now, I want you to put me on the cadillac board and I want two promising leads and I don't want any bullshit and I want them close together because I am going to close them all, and that is all I have to say to you! [flips him off]"

"That's fucked. That's fucked. You don't look at the fucking percentage. You look at the gross."

"Well, to the law, you’re an accessory. Before the fact."

"Cop couldn't find his dick, two hands and a map."

"Fuck the machine? FUCK THE MACHINE! What is this, courtesy class? You're fucked, Rick."

"Anybody that talks to this asshole is a fuckin' asshole."

"Yes, well that's very cute, but you're running this office like a bunch of bullshit."

"You stupid fucking cunt. Williamson! I'm talking to you shithead! You just cost me $6,000. $6,000, and one Cadillac. That's right. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it...asshole? You fucking shit! Where did you learn your trade, you stupid fucking cunt?! You idiot! Whoever told you that you could work with men?! Oh, I'm gonna have your job, shithead. I'm going downtown, I'm going to talk to Mitch and Murray! I'm going to Lemkin! I don't care whose nephew you are...who you know...whose dick you're sucking on, you're going out! I swear to you, you're going out! Anyone in this office lives on his wits. I'm going to be with you in a second. What you are hired for, is to help us. Does that seem clear to you? To HELP us. Not to FUCK US UP! To help men who are going out there to try to earn a living, you fairy. You company man. I'll tell you something else, I hope you ripped the joint off, maybe I can tell our friends here a little something that might help him to catch you. You want to learn the first rule you'd know if you'd ever spent a day in your life? You never open your mouth til you know what the shot is. You fucking child."

"When you are fighting, good against evil, when the good guys are taking on the bad guys and winning, then I think that’s good … unfortunately in our society, in reality, that’s not always the case."

"Men are like steel — when they lose their temper, they lose their worth."

"I had the opportunity to fly with a Top Gun pilot and land on the USS Nimitz, 240 miles at sea. We landed the F-14 tomcat on the carrier and I was given a tour and was able to shake hands with all the sailors and marines. As we were flying back to Miramar, Maverick (his call name) said to me, “Let’s pretend there is a bogey on our tail.” He immediately went into evasive maneuvers, spinning one way and then the other, hitting up to seven Gs! After about ten minutes, I was about ready to hurl, but I thought, “If I do, he is going to tell all the other Top Gun pilots,” so I said to Maverick in my headset, “Maverick, we lost him!” Maverick laughed and said, “I know what you mean.”"

"Sometimes the things we want most are the hardest to get. That means you need to be even more determined to succeed. That's what it takes to be a winner. You have to want it bad enough to stick with it no matter how tough things get."

"I would not want to be a politician... Let me tell you this: If I was campaigning, and I go against my opponent and he started attacking my character, and I leap over the table and choke him unconscious, would that help my campaign?"

"I'm aware of the made up declarations about me that have recently begun to appear on the Internet and in emails as "Chuck Norris facts." I've seen some of them. Some are funny. Some are pretty far out. Being more a student of the Wild West than the wild world of the Internet, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It's quite surprising. I do know that boys will be boys, and I neither take offense nor take these things too seriously. Who knows, maybe these made up one-liners will prompt young people to seek out the real facts as found in my recent autobiographical book, "Against All Odds?" They may even be interested enough to check out my novels set in the Old West, "The Justice Riders," released this month. I'm very proud of these literary efforts."