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One Of The Things You Don't Have In Haiti Is You Don't Have Anybody On Crack Doing Something Completely Out Of - That's Unpredictable. Even At The Worst Times In Haiti, The Violence That Had Happened, The Lack Of Security That Happened, Was Largely Predictable Because It Was Politically Tied.

-Sean Penn

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One Of The Things

Sean Penn

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One Of The Things You Don't Have In Haiti Is You Don't Have Anybody On Crack Doing Something Completely Out Of - That's Unpredictable. Even At The Worst Times In Haiti, The Violence That Had Happened, The Lack Of Security That Happened, Was Largely Predictable Because It Was Politically Tied.

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I Don't Want To Lie, Play Games, Hurt Somebody, Or Get Hurt. You Can Only Go Forward In One Direction.

Jon Krakauer Had Documented It Very Accurately And Very Well But This Kid Made A Real Impression On People, And Likewise They On Him. To Talk To Them Was Very Moving In Many Cases Because They Talk About Him Like They Saw Him Yesterday. In Most Cases They Knew This Kid For A Couple Of Weeks In Their Whole Life And He Just Lasted With Them.

When Everything Gets Answered, It's Fake.

I Had A House Burn Down Once, And Everything In Life Burned Except My Family, And It Was So Liberating. I Didn't Have A Bad Moment About It. It Sort Of Reinvigorated My Interest In A Lot Of Things. I Wonder If There Should Be Some Kind Of Anarchy.

I Like To Believe That Love Is A Reciprocal Thing, That It Can't Really Be Felt, Truly, By One.

I Can Always See Light In Any Situation. It's Just The Way I'm Made.

In Short Form I'll Say It Was An Approach To The Family And To [author] Jon Krakauer That Then Led To Me Seeming To Rise To The Top Of The Heap Of Several Filmmakers That Were Trying To Get The Rights. And By Top Of The Heap I Mean In Terms Of Being Somebody That Was Trusted To Do It As They Said They Were Going To Attempt To Do It And That This Way Of Doing It Would Be Something They Would Be Willing To Allow.

One Of The Reasons People Sell Out So Quickly Is Because Even The Talented Think They're Frauds. It's A Culture That Doesn't Encourage People To Believe In The Work They Do. You're Told To Second-guess Yourself All The Time. That's Where I Think A Little Hostility And Arrogance Can Save You. And I've Never Been Lacking For Either.

There Are A Few Directors Around Who I Have Some Excitement About Spending My $7 At The Theatre Watching Their Movies.

A Swat Team Surrounded My House And Came In Every Door. But It Happened Because On The Day That We Split Up, Madonna Developed A Concern That If She Were To Return To The House, She Would Get A Very Severe Haircut.

Haiti, Like Any Place, Has Its Security Problems; It Has A Great Challenge In Terms Of Establishing A Kind Of Globally Acceptable Rule Of Law.

And Dressed Her [madonna] Up Like A Turkey. After I Read That Stuff, I Thought Long And Hard About What One Would Do To Dress Someone Up Like A Turkey. And I Nailed It. I Figured You've Got To Get Out The Playtex Glove, Blow It Up And Put The Glove Over The Head.

I Do Not Believe In A Simplistic And Inflammatory View Of Good And Evil. I Believe This Is A Big World Full Of Men, Women, And Children Who Struggle To Eat, To Love, To Work, To Protect Their Families, Their Beliefs, And Their Dreams.

I Think That People Like The Howard Sterns, The Bill O'reillys And To A Lesser Degree The Bin Ladens Of The World Are Making A Horrible Contribution.

I'll Tell You What I Probably Would Prefer To Happen Less And Less: Actors That I Know And Respect In Shampoo Ads. Or Modeling.

There Is No Re-inventing The Wheel.

The Heartbreak That It Might Not Happen Wasn't Something That I Wanted To Face With Any More Weight. Then, When I Got The Call To Go Ahead I Never Thought For A Second As I Was Approaching It Who I Would Get - That Would Come Later. Again, I Think The Idea Was That I Now Had The Rights To Make The Movie And I Can Start Writing It But If I Have To Wait Another 10 Years Before I Find An Actor That's Right For It, I'd Be Very Happy To Do That.

I Don't Have Any Particular Excitement About Working With Any Specific Director Or Actor At This Point.

The Major Studios Are By And Large Banks, And They Give You What Is By And Large A Loan To Make A Movie. Like Banks, They Want Their Money Back Plus.

It Has Nothing To Do With The Emotional Demands Of A Role; I've Done Comedies That Are As Draining To Me As Any Drama.

When I Buy A Nikon Camera, I Have No Tolerance For The Instructions. I'm Ready To Make Some Mistakes Using It And Get Some Bad Pictures Back Until I've Figured It Out For Myself.

The First Instinct Is Love.

I Love Acting, Truly My Favorite People Are Actors.

I Can Make A Better Living As An Actor Than I Can As A Director. Though I Certainly Would Prefer To Be Directing Movies.

Directing Movies

The One Thing You Can Count On In Hollywood - Across The Board - Is Cowardice.

Yeah, I Had A Tremendous Time Shooting In Nebraska. I Like That State A Lot, All Over It.

It's Pretty Much Rock-'n'-roll. I Sit Down And Start Feeling Stuff And Writing.

That On A Romantic Level, If You Feel It About Somebody And It's Pure, It Means That They Do Too.

Well, It Was Interesting Because When I Was Going To Do It The First Time In My Head Was Leonardo Dicaprio [for Chris] And Marlon Brando Was Going To Play The Character That Hal Holbrook Eventually Played. But Then When It Wasn't To Be And There Was No Promise That It Ever Would Be I Think Some Part Of Me Didn't Want To Attach Specifics To It Anymore - Actors Or Anything Else - Because I Wanted To See It Made That Much More Badly.

Today, Maturity Is A Word I Associate With Spirituality. It's One Of Those Words That Cause People To Change Their Voice. When Your Voice Gets Higher Because Of What You're Saying, There's A Problem. To Me, The Conflict Of Life Is Part Of The Joy Of Life. There's Got To Be A Recognition Of The Friction That Exists. Maturity Seems Somehow About Getting Careful. I Don't Want To Be Careful.

If You Don’t Vote, You Don’t Matter.

I Just Want Real Creative Freedom Without Worrying About, You Know, Car Payments.

I Don't Read Newspapers Too Much , Just Because They Tend To Make Me Feel I Have A Political Obligation That I Think Is A Distraction From What My Political Offerings Are Going To Be If I Just Make My Movies.

If There's Anything Disgusting About The Movie Business, It's The Whoredom Of My Peers.

You Tolerate Me. You Really Tolerate Me!

That Was Madness. You're Never Going To Bring One Of Those Down With A Handgun.

Haiti Kind Of Gets A Hold Of You.

Love Is A Mess, At Best, And I Figure It Can Be Very Real In Spite Of All The Things People Try To Attach To It.

My Greatest Interest In It Was Certainly Not To Avoid Those Things That Were Going To Be Controversial About The Family But The Interest I Had In The Story Was Predominantly What He Was Pursuing And Not As Much What He Was Fleeing.

I'd Do Anything To Get A Performance, Short Of Malice.

There's The Old Notion That Where There's Choice, There's Chaos, And Where There's No Choice, There's Clarity. If You've Got No Choice, You've Gotta Be There, And You've Gotta Have Your Heart In It. It Leads To A Much Less Self-conscious Life.

I Don't See Myself As A Different Guy Than I Was Ten Years Ago. I Don't Have Aspirations To Be. It's Really About Where You're Putting Your Energies. That's Changing A Lot.

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Testing Yourself

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There's Not A Lot Of Good Movies Being Made.

Fulfilling What You Start Is Why You Start Something.

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I Get A Little Scared Of Words Like Maturity.

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Child-rearing Is My Main Interest Now. I'm A Hands-on Father.

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One Of The Things You Don't Have In Haiti Is You Don't Have Anybody On Crack Doing Something Completely Out Of - That's Unpredictable. Even At The Worst Times In Haiti, The Violence That Had Happened, The Lack Of Security That Happened, Was Largely Predictable Because It Was Politically Tied.

Yeah, I Had Actually Tried To Stop Acting Before I Made Dead Man Walking.

Sacrificing American Soldiers Or Innocent Civilians In An Unprecedented Preemptive Attack On A Separate Sovereign Nation May Well Prove Itself A Most Temporary Medicine.

The Thing That's Very Close In The Process Is Writing And Acting, Not Directing. Directing's Very Different.

It's A Foreground Of My Feeling. That Place Moves Me. And I Don't Mean My Country; It's Part Of Our Shared Natural World That Happens To Be Particular To A Sense Of Wherever My Storytelling Inclinations Come From And My Own History Of Kind Of Being A Road Rat And Travelling.

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I've Been A Road-rat Since I Got My Driver's Licence At 16, So I've Probably Gone Across America 20 Times.

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So If We Have Anything Original To Offer, It's To Speak From Our Own Life About The Society We're In.

I Think That I've Still Not Been Successful At Playing The Role Of The Retired Actor, And I'd Like To Work On That.

Women Are The Best. The Toughest. The Bane Of My Existence. And I'll Forever Fall For It.

I Still Think Photographers Should Be Lashed Out At. They Should Be Put In A Cage Where You Can Poke Them With A Stick For A Quarter. But Not In A Hostile Way, Just For Giggles. They Really Are On The Attack Against Mankind; It's A Disease. They Should Be Helped Somewhere. But I'd Still Like To Poke Them With A Stick.

I Think Life's An Irrational Obsession.

A Child Gets A Fever In The United States And It's High Enough And Sustainable Enough, All Of Us Can Bring A Child To An Emergency Room. Most Haitians Never Had That Opportunity. They Didn't Have The Emergency Room To Bring Them To. Virtually Every Time Your Child Has 102 Fever, You Wait For It To Die And You Have No Clean Water To Give It.

Putting Something In A Movie Because It's In The News Doesn't Make It Political To Me. If You're Not Going Outside The Same Old, Same Old, If You're Not Pushing The Envelope, Then You're Not Doing Anything. A Good Movie Is A Political Thing.

I'm Not A Breakfast Eater.

I Really Love To Make Movies.

At This Stage, What Would Be Rewarding Would Be For Audiences To Want To Watch.

That Difference Do You Think You Can Make, One Man In All This Madness?

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