"There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few."

"Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere."

"People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding."

"Clear thinking requires courage even more than intellect. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"There are pretenders to piety as well as to courage."

"You know I never used to be a bad flyer, but I did start to have a fear of flying after I shot a movie where I was terrorized on a plane. I made Wes Craven's 'Red Eye'. I don't think they're linked but it does make me pause and wonder if they are, so perhaps I will explore that in therapy some day."

"I've never played a hero before so I jumped at the chance."