- "Strangling that girl was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Number one, it was her first movie. Two, she was really nice. And three, there she was in Winslow, Arizona - the middle of nowhere - with me and Oliver Stone, and she had to get raped and murdered." About his role in Natural Born Killers (1994)
- "I'm a very fortunate actor. I'm blessed to be the position I'm in right now. Hell, I'm blessed to be in any position, you know? There are so many guys who had good lives, great lives, and blew it....I think there are some guys who think they don't deserve to have good lives. They feel they don't deserve their good fortune, so they throw it away. One of my good friends was Chris Farley. Chris blew it. He blew the whole enchilada."
- "When he hired me, Oliver [Oliver Stone] said, 'I'm making a table. I have four legs already - Robert Downey Jr., Juliette Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson. And I'm going to have a fifth leg on my table. And if that leg is wobbly, my table is a very fucked-up table, and things fall off of it. You're not going to be a wobbly leg, are ya?' And I said, "No. I won't, I won't, I won't fuck up your table." - On getting the part in Natural Born Killers (1994).
- "I was a wayward kid, a rambunctious and angry teenager, but I found acting as a fifteen-year-old. I saw some movies with Montgomery Clift and James Dean, and I read biographies about them - then Marlon Brando - and I got it in my head that I wanted to be an actor. The first scene I did in an acting class was from "In the Boom Boom Room", by David Rabe. I played "Big Al". It was a very violent and emotional scene, and I liked that - I realized I had it in me."
- "Temptation is impossible for me to resist...Come on. This is Hollywood. It's in the job description."
- "I was the star of the class. I got the best roles. I was a very serious actor. Besides me, no one from that class has done anything in the business." - On his time as a drama student at Temple University.
- "You must have to want it so badly, if there is any way you can live without it, get out of it. Being an unsuccessful actor is like having a skin disease. Make sure your passion is not misplaced." - On advice to aspiring actors
- "Steven [Steven Spielberg] said he was going to give me a second chance, but that he would have me tested throughout the shoot. He said that even if I only started using on the last day of production he'd recast the part and re-shoot everything. He didn't want to be part of my problem." - On his drug problem and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
- "For years I fooled myself into thinking I could or even was getting off drugs. People knew I was using but they still hired me for their films. I was grateful back then, but it was what contributed to my downward spiral. People talk about my bizarre behaviour at the 1995 Toronto Film Festival when we were promoting Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). I was so high during that period I don't remember making the movie, let alone promoting it." - Quote from 2001.
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