I think any performing artist can do films, or, as a matter of fact, anybody out there in the street can be a film actor with no experience whatsoever if you've got a good director.
I was offered a series by John Carpenter after I did the movie 'Christine,' and I would've been a leading man after that. I would have played a private investigator. And I was offered a great deal - I would be involved in the direction, casting, everything, and whatever. It was whatever an actor wants, and I didn't take it.
If I never did another film after 'Paris, Texas,' I'd be happy.
My feeling or philosophy is closer to Taoism and Zen Buddhism, 'cause it's the most practical.
I've been blessed. I've worked with a lot of good people.
I was singing the blues when I was six. Kind of sad, eh?
I was in the Pacific. The Pacific Theater, as they say.
'Pretty In Pink' was a huge hit for me.
When man began to think he was a separate person with a separate soul, it created a violent situation.
I can understand why it takes some people a long time to really be a singer. You have to find out, 'Why am I singing? What am I doing this for?' I do it because I enjoy it, and philosophically, music is a catalyst. It's a refining agent.
I've got a pretty iconoclastic attitude about all institutions myself. And I just think the church was corrupted right after Christ was killed.
I had to decide if I wanted to be a singer or an actor. I was always singing. I thought if I could be an actor, I could do all of it.
I've never been ambitious about recording.
I'd love to meet Gandhi. And Christ. I'm sure he'd be interesting. And a lot different than a lot of people would think.
The void, the concept of nothingness, is terrifying to most people on the planet. And I get anxiety attacks myself. I know the fear of that void. You have to learn to die before you die. You give up, surrender to the void, to nothingness.
I had opportunities to be a lot more successful, but for some reason or other - the way I was particularly genetically wired - I turned down a lot of opportunities.
I've passed up opportunities. I've avoided the spotlight. I've never been to Academy Awards, didn't relate to them.
I never liked being ordered around - which, of course, was an overreaction. I eventually found out that I didn't mind being ordered around at all when it was by someone who knew what he was doing.
I can't stress too much how much Ry Cooder was an influence on me. Having one of the most respected musicians around like my singing really gave me the confidence to do it.
Sam Shepard is a brilliant writer.
I would've preferred to blossom earlier in life.
I've avoided success artfully.
I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.
A friend is somebody who doesn't lie.
You can do stuff onstage that you can't do offstage. You can be angry as hell and enraged and get away with it onstage, but not off.
What did we play in the Harry Dean Stanton Band? It was old blues and country - all covers. I never wrote anything.
I don't recall what the first record I bought was, but I definitely remember hearing Creedence's 'Born on the Bayou' and going out and buying it. The guitar and drums in that band were really good. I loved the words to the title track, and Fogerty's voice sounded just great.
I have a good ear for languages.
I do the same series of five exercises 21 times each day - an ancient Tibetan practice that stimulates your chakras.
I sang barber shop harmony and sort of got into performing. And it just came naturally. Then, when I was in college after the war, I did a play, 'Pygmalion,' by George Bernard Shaw. And from then on, I knew that's what I wanted to do.
'Paris, Texas' gave me a chance to play compassion, and I'm spelling that with a capital C.
The band I've played with for 10 or 12 years now, we've been all over, but we mostly play in LA.
I've worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.
I realized early on that if I became an actor, I could play a writer and a sculptor and a painter and be all the things you just don't have time to be in your lifetime. I could get to learn about all of them.
I used to sing when I was six years old. When the family would leave the house, I'd get up on the stool and sing. 'T for Texas, T for Tenessee, T for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me.' I was in love with my babysitter. She was 18. I was six.
I worked with the best directors - Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.
Every actor is a character actor.
I am not into any religions. I have been mostly influenced by Eastern religions - Taoism, the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism. But my belief is not having any beliefs.
I think I'm blessed with a pretty tough psyche.
I could have made it as a singer, but I went with acting - surrendered to it, in a way.
I'm not really into religion.
I play myself all the time, on camera and off. What else can I do?
Silence is the most powerful state.
I do all the classics, like Dylan, Kristofferson, Jimmy Reed, Mexican mariachi songs, some jazz songs from the '30s. Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine,' that's one of my favorites.
I've never seen a Western that was really truthful. Most are just morality plays. Good guys and bad guys - and the good guys always win, whereas in reality, most of the sheriffs were as bad as the gangsters they were after.
My father and mother were not that compatible. I don't think they had a good wedding night, and I was the product of that. We weren't close.
I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color.
I like to do nothing.
I don't believe in singing lessons. You can sing or you can't.
