"The roles that Eastwood has played, and the films that he has directed, cannot be disentangled from the nature of the American culture of the last quarter century, its fantasies and its realities."

“secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff.”

“I wanted to play it with an economy of words and create this whole feeling through attitude and movement. It was just the kind of character I had envisioned for a long time, keep to the mystery and allude to what happened in the past. It came about after the frustration of doing Rawhide for so long. I felt the less he said the stronger he became and the more he grew in the imagination of the audience.”

“There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.”

“Having the security of being in a series week in, week out gives you great flexibility; you can experience with yourself, try a different scene different ways. If you make a mistake one week, you can look at it and say, 'Well, I won't do that again,' and you're still on the air next week.”

“I thought I might die. But then I thought, 'Other people have made it through these things before'. I kept my eyes on the lights on shore and kept swimming.”

“Everybody wonders why I continue working at this stage. I keep working because there's always new stories. … And as long as people want me to tell them, I'll be there doing them.”